Dragons and Dreamers
by innocentsonya
Summary: Inquisitor Liara Lavellan is devastated by the loss of her once-beloved Solas. Stripped of her vallaslin, she struggles to redefine herself and pull together the inquisition and finds unexpected help from the mercenary leader, The Iron Bull. Story starts just after the Well of Sorrows. And good news for my followers: I finally know how I want this story to go.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! This is my first story and I apologize in advance for not quite knowing where my story is going yet, but I hope you'll bear with me so I can try to improve. I should be putting out a new chapter at least once every three weeks. If you like Dragon Age drama, I would like to encourage you to read any and all works by Seab1rds0ng as they have been a major inspiration in my wanting to write for FanFiction.**

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After their breakup, Liara had done little but sulk. She had walked back in the dark, alone, much to the distress of everyone. It had been daylight when she'd left with Solas for their date, but it seemed he had not arrived before her. She had fought back the urge to go back out to find him. _Why should I_ , she wondered, _do I really care what he does now?_ But she did.

Nearly a week later there was still no sign of him and she spent the days battling her worry for him against her depression. She had cooped herself up in her room, eating little and rarely meeting with her advisers. Nearly all of her companions had tried dropping by to express their concern, to the point that she had nearly had to banish Cole from Skyhold for the duration of her funk.

She'd been haunted by dreams of that night ever since. In her dreams she saw him by the waterfall, moonlight glinting in his shimmering eyes. She thought he saw her perfectly for the first time - she was completely free for just a moment. Free from her duties to Skyhold, free of the vallaslin, free of the worries of the world ending that plagued and pushed her.

He held her face in his hands and stared at her as if he were holding all the world in his palm. "You are so beautiful." He said, as if looking at her burned his eyes. His hand was warm on her cheek, and a blushing smile crept over her face as he regarded her, newly baptized in his love. She had left everything behind for a chance to escape into his world: his world of dreams, spirits, and thoughts as whimsical and musically beautiful as the wind in a field.

And then it was gone. In her dream, a mask of pure silver, reflecting the moon with blinding clarity, slid over his face, obscuring him. She clawed at it, trying to pull it from him so she could see his face, to see what he was hiding from her. But there was nothing for her to hold, no seam between his face and his mask. Desperation filled her mouth with the taste of bile and her eyes brimmed with tears.

"But I love you!" She cried as he pushed her away slowly. As he left, he took the moon with him and the world fell to shadow around her. She fell to the ground, afraid and alone in the dark, sobbing into her hands and wiping away tears what would not stop. Shadows stretched around her and seemed to grow teeth and glowing eyes and she scrambled back, afraid, as the light faded around her. Somewhere far away, a wolf howled.

This morning, she'd awoken clutching her pillow tightly and her jaw aching from grinding her teeth. Reluctantly, she pushed herself to the side of the bed and let her feet fall to the ground as she sat on the edge of the bed, staring through the windows at the early morning light creeping over the mountain peaks.

 _I can't do this every day. I'm going to go mad._ She thought, shaking her head slightly, trying to rid herself of the nightmare. Wearily, she stood up, stretching wide with a yawn and rubbed her eyes. Too lazy to find something to wear, she slipped into her formal pajamas and tread gingerly down the stairs of the tower that was her room, hoping nobody would be in the great hall this early in the morning. It was too much to hope for, of course, but nobody bothered her as she walked barefoot across the long hall to stand before the door to the room that Solas had once made his study. She hadn't stepped foot in it since that night, and though she knew he wouldn't be there, she fought the urge to knock. Swallowing hard and exhaling deeply, she pushed the door open.

In many ways the room looked very much the same as she'd left it. The torches on the wall were diligently lit, his desk remained filled with familiar things, and the sound of ravens echoed overhead. But the veilfire Solas kept had gone out, and it seemed to signal everything that was so wrong about this place. Somehow, everything about this room was quieter, sadder.

She inhaled, and steadied herself in the doorway before venturing to his chair and pulling herself a seat. She ran her hands along the table and thought of the times she'd come in to find Solas deep in thought in this very spot. He hadn't taken anything with him when he'd left, but the things that remained looked like props without his presence. At the farthest corner from where she sat was a small tin. She reached for it. With the greatest care, she gingerly twisted off the lid and raised it to her face, inhaling the tangy sweet earthen scent. The smell made her eyes water as memories came flooding back to her.

"You can't hate tea. It's not going to work for us." She said, smiling up at him as she lay in the grass, her head in his lap.

"Oh?" He asked, raising one critical eyebrow. She treasured these small moments with him in solitude. With Solas, she always felt further away from her responsibilities - fully alive in the present, despite all horrors that surrounded her on a daily basis. She would gaze up at his ever-thoughtful eyes and see only the simple care and joy he felt for her.

"I get it. Woodsy, rugged elf scorns all things city and fancy. But you can't hate all tea! Surely you can appreciate some varieties! Highland Blue with elfroot and lavender is a wonderful restorative tea for mages." She suggested. He shook his head, smiling.

"With just a touch of wildflower honey?" Her big elf eyes pleaded with him and she stuck out her lower lip in a mock pout. He shook slightly with laughter and stroked her hair before leaning down to plant a kiss on her forehead.

"Well I'll find something you like even if I have to travel all the way to Rivain," she promised.

He just cradled her head and smiled at her.

Those days were gone. It didn't matter if Solas came back. She was his tea - Even if he exalted her as better than all the rest of her kind, she was still not to his taste.

She inhaled the sweet floral aroma, lidded the tin, and took it out of the room with her to walk across the way to Cullen's office. A cool breeze picked up and she hugged her arms to her body as she looked across the courtyard. The keep was beginning to come alive down below as soldiers passed each other and traded pleasantries. The smell of freshly baked bread hung in the air, signaling to everyone that the kitchens were open. For a time, she could almost forget that she was supposed to be raising an army here; that the only reason they found this place was because of everyone who had died at Haven. She could feel the magic of this place in every stone, humming with a rejuvenating song that somehow brought peace, despite being built to facilitate vigilance.

They would never have found Skyhold without Solas.

Crossing the walk, she approached the door to the commander's office and let herself in. The door creaked loudly as it always did, and she winced as the sound bounced off the walls. A little oil would have fixed it, of course, but Cullen said he preferred to have the door announce for him when people were dropping in.

Looking about, she saw the commander was not yet in his office, but hearing the door open, he called down a greeting.

"Yes?" He called, voice thick with sleep, "Who's there?"

"It's just me, Cullen." She said, "I'm just passing through."

She heard nothing for a little while, and then light thump on the floor overhead.

"I see… how are you feeling?" Came the reply from above. His voice was low, almost cautiously tender.

"Fine," she replied, trying to keep her voice as even as possible. She tired of people worrying about her, but it was too exhausting trying to pretend to be happy. She hoped she sounded sincere at least.

"Good," came his relieve response, "that's good."

When the silence that followed began to become uncomfortable, she started to be on her way.

"Inquisitor," she heard, "I am running a training exercise at the ring today. I thought, um. Would you like to participate? Some of the new recruits have expressed interest in seeing your ability. And I think it would be a… nice change of pace. If you'll forgive my presumption." Some more silence followed.

She thought about it for a minute, turning over the tiny tin as she did. Perhaps it was a good idea. She didn't quite feel ready to go save the world today, but she might welcome some sparring. She'd been idle too long and found the inactivity wasn't doing anything to improve her mood.

"Sure, Cullen," she relented, trying to squeeze as much cheer into her voice as she could muster, "that sounds fine."

"Oh! Really?" Her commander utterly failed at hiding the great surprise in his voice. "Great! We're starting in a few hours, I'm sure you'll hear us."

"Oh! wait." She heard a small commotion upstairs. "You should eat if you're going to be joining us. A good breakfast, I mean. I'm actually headed to the tavern for breakfast myself if you'd care to join me. "

"Oh. Ok. I guess that might be a good idea," she admitted, hesitantly. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being babysat just a little bit. Cullen was a very thoughtful man but his concern made her feel a bit guilty at having shut herself up in her room so long.

"Good! I'll be right down."

She waited for not even a minute, listening to the thumps and scuffles overhead while she glanced about the room before he came hurriedly down the ladder.

She giggled. Cullen had never, in her presence, been so poorly put together. The fur collar he so often wore looked flattened on the left side and slightly askew on his shoulders. Some of the buckles on his armor had not been properly fastened, there were bed wrinkles on his face, and his thick blonde hair was tousled and badly in need of a brush.

"Oh my," she said, hiding her smile behind a hand. This was, perhaps, the first time in a week she had come so close to laughter.

He seemed to realize himself.

"Ah. Ha." He tugged on his armor in an attempt to straighten out and swept his hair back with his fingers. "I'm sorry. I suppose I could've taken more time to present myself. It's just..." he drew in a breath and met her eyes with a solemn intensity. "Nobody has seen very much of you lately. Leliana's reports say you haven't been eating much either. I'd never hear the end of it if I just let you get away without trying to make you eat."

Suddenly she felt very selfish. Her poor commander had hurried out of bed in such disarray simply to ensure her well-being. He was cute when he fretted, though. At a different time, it might have been Cullen that had captured her attention He was calm and sweet, and already shouldered many of her burdens. Simply thinking of it reminded her how very alone she'd felt lately. She was suddenly very grateful for the offer of company.

She helped Cullen straighten out his armor and fixed him up to just about normal, finding herself laughing and smiling with him as they both worked to make him slightly less ridiculous. Despite all Cullen had been through, he managed to to retain a degree of humility and willingness to laugh at himself that made him an excellent friend and sympathetic leader in spite of the stressors he surely faced during the course of his duties.

When they had finished, they walked across the battlements, occasional small talk breaking up the quiet in their short walk to the tavern. As she looked out over the mountains, she couldn't help but stop to look over Skyhold's entrance, somehow impossibly hopeful that she'd see her beloved standing on the bridge or off in the distance. She clutched so tightly at the tin in her hands that he fingers made little indents. When she finally looked back, she saw Cullen waiting patiently at the top of the stairs and she managed an apologetic smile before catching up to him.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Liara saw Cassandra was already awake and warming up across the courtyard and she regarded Liara with thinly-veiled astonishment to see her about, but kept her distance. Liara somehow felt she should be apologetic to the boredom Cassandra must feel when they were not out on missions, as she was often training alone in the courtyard. But it was just one more thing to feel guilty about that Liara just didn't want to deal with today as she and Cullen entered the tavern.

It did smell heavenly. The smell of the morning's bread immediately assaulted them as they opened the door, mingling with salt and meat.

"Inquisitor, please, have a seat, I'll be right back." He motioned to a small table and smiled at her warmly before wandering to the bar. Liara observed the small space, still largely empty. A few scouts sat around in groups chatting over pieces of bread and slices of ham with boiled egg. There was a fire, warm and lively, filling the air with soft crackling over the low din of conversations on the floor above.

She thought about today's plans and decided that it was good to have something to look forward to in the day. Already she felt as though her day had just a bit more meaning to it. It would be good for her troops to see her and for her to be an inspiration once again for something other than pity. She rolled her shoulders and neck, hoping she hadn't lost any of her dexterity in her short absence from the field.

Cullen returned with two glasses of water and settled into the chair across from her.

"They have some hash going in the kitchen that should be ready for us in a minute." He said. She nodded.

"So tell me about this training exercise you're doing? If you dragged the mighty Inquisitor out you must have something more than drills planned. A melee?"

"Yes, actually. I always encourage our soldiers to drill in the ring, but not everyone has taken to that voluntarily of course. I know the melee isn't everyone's strength, but the exercise in close quarters benefits all of our fighters." He took a drink from his glass and knitted his brows. "Honestly, I've been toying with the idea of having the mages train alongside our soldiers, but Cassandra doesn't believe the soldiers are ready to cope with their presence. And vis versa." He sighed and cast a humorously exasperated look at her. "I'm afraid she's right. Having a seeker and a templar overseeing mage combat might not send the message that we trust them as our partners. But it needs to be done if the Inquisition is ever to be what you… what we all aspire for it to be".

She hadn't really thought about the need for mages to train alongside troops, to be honest. She had grown up in a very different world than most of the people she now led. All of the mages she'd ever known had been "apostates" and she'd never learned to fear magic the way the shemlen had. Was it really so hard to accept that magic was just another weapon or tool and that the people that used it were simply trained in a different set of skills?

"That's not on today's agenda, though?" She asked.

"No. It's something I need to coordinate with Cassandra, Fiona, and possibly Vivian - if I were sure she would be wholly in support of the idea."

"You don't think she would be?"

He scoffed. "She wants the circles restored. Her idea of peace between mages and the rest of the world involves a 'healthy separation' between the two."

"Ah, yes," she said dryly, "that seems to have been working well up until now."

They both laughed a bit and settled into a comfortable conversation as their food arrived. Liara found herself relaxing around the commander more than she she'd expected, but Cullen was an easy man to talk to. He laughed politely and smiled across the table, telling absurd tales about the troops, mixed in with tales of heroism and triumph. By the end, she had half forgotten that she'd spent the better part of the week distanced from the goings-ons of her keep. When their meal was finished, he thanked her for her company and double checked that she was still coming to the ring later before wishing her good day.

She felt an odd pang of loneliness when he left.

"He will come back." Said a voice immediately beside her. She jumped a little, turning to find the source. Cole stood close to her, watching the door where Cullen had departed. "He admires you 'Wish she knew. Can't. Blue, under the skin, catching! calling!... can't.'"

Liara breathed an exasperated sigh and tried to force herself to relax in the spirit's presence. The trouble with someone only appearing when you're experiencing negative emotion is you begin to relate the two; as a result, Cole always put her slightly on edge. Liara guessed this may be one of the many reasons Cole found it easier to make people forget him, rather than hurt them with his presence. She vaguely wondered if it was too early for a beer.

"I am glad you're back!" He said, with a sudden burst of energy that made him almost seem human.

"Thanks, Cole. I am too."

"Am I not banned from talking to you anymore?" His big soulful eyes gazed at her from behind his untidy hair.

"Evidently not," she muttered, taking a baleful swig of her water.

"Oh."

For a long second, silence followed as she tried to think of something, anything else, that was happy that wouldn't catch Cole's attention. She stared at the fireplace, trying to recall her happiest memories.

She thought of the pride she felt when her keeper chose her for her mission; the exhilaration she experienced closing the breach at the temple of Sacred Ashes; the power she witnessed when she held the Inquisition sword above her cheering subjects; and the thrill she'd felt when she'd kissed Solas for the first time in the real world.

But Justinia was dead; the breach remained; her people were exhausted; and Solas - beloved Solas - might never return to her. She felt her hurt, and knew Cole felt it too. When she looked back up she saw his pained expression reflecting her own torment, somehow amplifying it and making her feel nauseous.

"You weren't wrong," he pleaded, "you did everything right. Sometimes right goes wrong. It wasn't your fault."

"Cole…" She heard her voice crack. She couldn't be dealing with this now. She wasn't ready.

"'Not yet'. I know. But-"

"No, Cole." She shut her eyes and swept her hair back, trying to push the thoughts away from her.

"I am sorry." He said before disappearing

Pushing her up from the table, she determined not to dwell on her thoughts. Her day had started so well by the rest of the week's standards that she was loathe to ruin it by pouting any longer. She shoved the thoughts from her mind as best she could before heading to her room to armor up.


	2. Chapter 2

"I mean, I can't hit her, can I?" The recruit asked, nervously glancing back at Cullen.

"Not if you're not paying attention," replied the commander, "Focus on your enemy!"

"But-" he protested weakly.

Across ring from the nervous recruit, Liara smiled in spite of herself. It really was shaping up to be an excellent day. It was a beautifully clear afternoon in the mountains and Cullen had gathered all the recruits in the yard to run them through a tournament of sorts. The exercise had even attracted most of the rest of Skyhold to watch as well. Soldiers stood and cheered from the battlements while the resident diplomats and emissaries filled the stairway to the keep and tittered excitedly. Liara was certain that Varric had even set up a round of bets somehow and he was standing cross-armed and smiling beside some tiered benches that had been recently erected. From the roof of the inn, Sera called down raucous obscenities beside a somewhat sheepishly-amused Lace Harding.

Cassandra and Cullen were there as well, though more for the purpose of assigning grades to the combatants. They stood at opposite ends of the ring, carefully watching the fights and occasionally calling instructions. Of the recruits they'd seen today, the one across from Liara in the ring had demonstrated exceptional fighting skills.

"He's a tribute from a noble family," Cullen had told her as they watched the young man receive due congratulations from his previous victories. "Apparently, they wanted to appear gracious to the Inquisition by volunteering their son for service. As you can see, the boy is already far better trained than most of the others we've received." Like so many Ferelden nobles, he favored the sword and shield and had thus far managed to block, bash, and slash his way into his reward: single combat with the mighty Inquisitor.

"So... what?" She asked. "Should I go easy on him?"

Cullen chuckled. "You're not concerned he might actually be able to win? He's done quite well so far."

"Ah," she glanced down at her hands and then shrugged to Cullen. "I guess I can always be surprised." They shared a short laugh at that. The Inquisition had known its fair share of surprises since its foundation and both of them knew it well.

"Just don't embarrass him too badly. If you make him look good and puff up his ego a bit I'm sure his family would appreciate it. It wouldn't be too bad for the troops either."

While she was confident the boy wouldn't be much of a challenge for her, even just this little bit of action made Liara feel lighter. She found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet in anticipation of even this small bout and her body thrummed with a nervous excitement. She surveyed her opponent, checking for resolve in his step, searching for weakness in his stance, and watching for the knitting of his brows that signified a commitment to act.

When he eventually moved towards her, she knew it for the test it was. As he lunged at her, she exaggerated her dodge, making an opening for him - willing him to take it. Many of the less experienced recruits would have fallen for it, but Liara was pleased to see that this one did not. He instead steadied his shield as he stepped to the side.

They shared small exchanges and tests, working up the crowd with each blocked strike and dodge. Cullen hadn't lied; the boy was actually quite good. She was very pleased that the Inquisition had managed to attract enough attention from the nobles to warrant them sending recruits of this skill and rank. If he lived through the coming confrontations, he would surely be given an impressive enough rank within her army to sufficiently please his parents.

The Inquisition had grown so much since they'd moved to Skyhold. Since acquiring the mages and ending the civil war, it seemed that people from all over Thedas were joining up. Few of them knew about Corypheus beyond his apparent control of an archdemon, but they knew that the Inquisition was doing good and they were eager to help in any way they could. Leliana had so many agents at her disposal that no secrets were safe; combined with Josephine's talent for dealing with nobility, everyone of importance was supporting the Inquisition, by choice or out of fear for what the Inquisition knew.

Liara lobbed a wide swing with her right blade to hook just around the recruit's shield. She knew the swing was far too wide to follow up on, but it was just close enough that she hoped he'd have to block. His shield swept aside the attacking blade, knocking her arm out of the way while leaving a new opening for her. With her left blade, she followed with a jab at his belly, expecting the downward parry.

Instead, his sword caught her blade awkwardly from the outside, jerking and sweeping the dagger to catch against his shield with an impact that shook her arm violently.

 _Shit_ , she thought. She promptly let go of the blade and jumped back just in time to prevent a riposte to her guts. She heard gasps and cheers from the audience as her blade fell to the dust beneath the recruit. Maybe this kid really did have a better chance of beating her than she'd though. She smirked at him and shook out her arm.

"Sorry," he said, but he smiled triumphantly all the same. Liara looked over at Cullen, who looked rather handsomely smug, and she got the feeling she'd just ensured this kid got a fast-tracked promotion.

"You're not bad, kid," she admitted, pacing around him.

"Thanks!" He beamed over the shield, looking positively giddy. He began to close in as she attempted to circle around him.

She could see the hope in the recruits' faces that one of their own might have a chance. She briefly considered throwing the match just to motivate them. But she was pretty certain that both Varric and Cassandra would chew her out if she did; Cassandra for her failure of integrity, and Varric for costing him bets.

Today really was a spectacular day.

The recruit came in at her with the sword. She parried as best she could with her one weapon, still feeling a bit defenseless and naked without the other dagger. She stepped around him when he followed with a shield bash. In her mind, she tried to envision herself as the victor, just as her Keeper had taught her.

"All of the People have magic within them," Keeper Vihda had said to her a lifetime ago. "Just because you can't cast spells doesn't mean you don't influence the world with your thoughts. Visualize the result you want, as vividly as you can, and your desires will manifest before you."

"That's not magic," she'd protested, scowling, "that's just ordinary positive thinking."

"No, child. What we have is stronger. Anybody can do what you say, it's true, but some of the old magic lives in our blood. Harness that. Now try again, and this time, visualize your target."

Liara tried to imagine herself changing in the ring, becoming stronger and quicker. As usual, she felt nothing magic about the experience, but she did feel more optimistic, at least.

She dove behind him, dropping into a roll to come up beside her fallen dagger. Scooping it up in her hand, she sprang forward and charged him with both blades, launching a fury of blows at his shield. At her sudden onslaught, he staggered backwards and she swept a foot under him, hooking his leg and sending him crashing backwards, shield wide. With great finesse, she dropped on top of him and leveled a dagger triumphantly at his throat.

The cheering abruptly dissolved. Liara heard applause from some, but she also heard a fair number of disappointed murmurs and grumbles as well.

The shimmer of a barrier ran under her blade, keeping him safe, though she'd not touched him. The barriers had been part of Cullen's recent plan to get the recruits used to working alongside mages and had the helpful benefit of also minimizing the damage they did to each other. She flicked the blades back into her shoulder straps and offered the recruit a hand up, which he took with a shy blush and a mumble of gratitude.

"Hey," she said, dusting him off, "you did really well. I wasn't expecting to have to work for that victory!" She smiled. "I shall have to send your family my sincerest thanks for sending you to us."

That seemed to improve the boy's mood and he stood tall as he walked to join the other recruits, who welcomed him and offered their congratulations.

Liara savored the momentary high of victory and the good work she'd done, glad for the reprieve from the darker emotions that plagued her of late. It felt good to win one, she realized, beaming up at the high noon sun with an exhilarated sigh.

"Well-fought, recruits," Cullen boomed. "The Inquisition demands your skills, such as they are, and we will be sharpening them every day here and in the field. The officers and I have evaluated your strengths and assigned you to groups that you'll be training with."

As Cullen rattled off the group assignments, Liara noticed a quick exchange between The Iron Bull and a smiling Varric, who was shaking his head as Iron Bull raised his maul and began walking towards her with a determined strut. Unsure of what was happening, Liara cast a concerned glance at Varric, who shrugged a laugh and began to work up the crowd. She quickly looked back to Iron Bull.

"Hey, boss!" He yelled, lifting the maul over his terrifyingly huge shoulders. "Good to see you out and about! Get those blades ready!" He smiled and began to walk a little faster. Liara took an unconscious step back and pulled her daggers free just as Iron Bull broke into a run and charged her.

"What the-" she began. But she didn't have time to finish the thought before he was in front of her and she had to roll away or be crushed by the maul.

"VOID! BULL?!" She screamed, pulling herself up and backing as far away from The Iron Bull as possible. She quickly saw that all eyes were on the ring again and Varric was grabbing fistfuls of paper from several members of the audience. She watched with a mix of horror and anger as Bull pulled the maul up from the modest crater it'd left, muscles rippling with the weight of the weapon. A barrier shimmered over her skin and she was grateful that the mages on the sidelines were paying attention. If she'd been slower and the barrier absent, the blow would've easily resulted in several hours on a stretcher in the care of a healer.

"You're taking this a bit far, don't you think?!"

Bull had the maul up again and was coming at her with a big stupid grin on his face. She continued trying to back away from him but his forward strides far outreached her retreat and he was soon upon her again with his weapon raised menacingly.

"Give 'em a show!" He grunted as he brought the maul down again with a crash. As the tumbled to the side, she saw him already lifting the weapon up for another strike, pummeling the ground all around him in a frenzy she dared not advance on. She didn't know if Bull was trying to humiliate or undermine her, but the fury of his attacks made his reasoning somewhat irrelevant. If he was determined to challenge her and he was really going to give it his all, then she was going to have either flee or win.

After a few long moments of panic, Liara noticed Bull's rampage coming to a close and she began to stalk towards him carefully through the cloud of dust he'd made. Adrenaline pounded in her ears as she quickly padded towards the hulking figure, quiet as a cat. He perceived her through the dust cloud but was just a moment too late to make an accurate swipe at her. By the time he swung his weapon she was already behind him and going in for the strike. As she tried to make a jab at his back, Bull pivoted his swing into a whirlwind strike, forcing Liara to forgo her attack and to duck out of the way.

She pressed in around him, working in little cuts on the barrier where she could find them, but she stayed ever mindful that Bull only needed to land one strike on her to break the magical shield around her and win the match. Bull had never been a defensive fighter, but the sheer force of his aggression and attacks did a fair amount to deter her from getting in any meaningful strikes. She danced around him, twirling just outside the reach of his weapon and back in from behind. From around the ring, she felt more than saw the crowd's eager anticipation and the energy pouring off of them. Liara pushed herself a little harder, trying to force herself to gradually move in on the inexhaustible giant.

She desperately wanted to win. She tried to hold the image of her victory in mind, but every time she saw a chance to attack, the maul was already there on the offensive, blocking her. Fighting against someone so aggressive and with no apparent need or desire to block and that seemed to feel no pain nor weaken was a different beast all its own; almost like fighting a miniature dragon. Bull was rage and power. Sweat poured off of him, but he did not tire. He bled, but he did not slow. With every swing, she thought she saw a sadistic arousal glint within his dark eyes, as if a dream of fire in a faraway place. How many men had Bull killed, she wondered? Hundreds? Could it even be thousands? She tried not to see the spark in his eyes, tried not to think of the men who'd died without leaving even a single of the multitude of scars that covered his body. She restrained the impulse to shiver.

She needed to win.

Liara became a little more daring, staying a little closer to Bull than she had been. She wasted less energy darting in and out of range and had more opportunity to land attacks, but she knew that meant she was closer to danger - a fact she was reminded of every time the ground beside her shook with the force of Bull's impact. Her quickness was the only thing keeping her safe in this range and her body thrummed with the surging adrenaline. After what seemed like an endless ground-pounding barrage, Liara sensed her chance approaching. Without hesitation, without care to safety, she leaped behind him from a crouch, reaching high and stabbing both weapons down into his back.

Time seemed to slow as the daggers came down. In her mind she saw where the blades would fall, anticipated the resistance on the blades as they cut through the barrier, applauded herself for her persistence rewarded.

But her self-congratulations were premature.

While her blades made their descent, Bull had shifted. Her right blade rang true, stabbing down into his right shoulder blade and straining the barrier where she sliced, but her left dagger caught his shoulder guard and scraped roughly against it and down, just grazing his low back. The combined damage was not enough to bring down the barrier. Feeling greedy with the need to win, she went in for another strike. Just one more is all it would take and she would be victorious. Bull roared and swung the maul around low. As her feet swung out from under her, she knew she'd lost. She landed flat on her back and the impact knocked the wind out of her chest. The maul crashed down on top of her, shattering the barrier and fracturing several ribs - along with her pride. If she'd had air in her lungs, she would've screamed. Blood pounded in her ears as she struggled to maintain her senses through the pain.

Defeated, she lay on the ground not even trying to move. Within seconds, a healer was with her. She raged within her body, glaring at the sky as she painfully tried to regain her breath. Gradually the edges of her vision began to regain their color and she began to pick out sounds from the roaring in her ears. She heard Cullen commanding the recruits, who were now clearly worked up, to move down the stairs for their assignments and a number of angry voices that she would be angry bettors trying to wrestle money from Varric over by the benches. Presently, she began to hear excited female voices, cooing and giggling very near to her and turned to look at the commotion. If The Iron Bull hadn't been a head and shoulders taller than most, he would've been lost in a swarm of Orlesian dresses.

When the healer was done, Liara rolled to gather her knives and pushed herself up, grunting at the phantom ache of her healed ribs. When she got up, she saw that Iron Bull was trying to politely excuse himself from the women and was looking at her with an expression she didn't understand. She wanted to call him on the bullshit and humiliation he'd just unleashed on her, but found that the anger inside her had no words at the moment. It wasn't really the match that was bothering her. She and Bull had fought before plenty of times. They frequently ran drills together with the Chargers and had been both allies and adversaries in an arena setting. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure what was bothering her at the moment. Her defeat had been public, but it had been fair and she was proud of the fight she'd put up. She wasn't even particularly bothered that Bull and Varric had set up bets beforehand, for she knew full well that Varric's profits always went straight towards the Inquisition's benefit.

Something in Bull's face when he'd first walked over unsettled her.

Whatever storm was forming in her head, she would need more than tavern swill to deal with it. She strapped her blades to her back and walked briskly towards the keep stairs without a glance backwards.

"Hey! Boss, wait up!" she heard, but she didn't wait. She was a woman on a mission now. The stairs to the keep passed swiftly under her feet as she made her way up, hearing Bull's heavy footsteps behind her as she crossed into the hall of judgement. For once, it was all but empty of its usual puffed shirts and emissaries, due to the afternoon's excitement - a fact she was wholly grateful for as she made her way unmolested across the hall. Would their faith in the Inquisition be shaken by what they'd seen today, she wondered, or strengthened knowing the forces she commanded had such skill? She supposed it didn't matter. Largely, the concerns of such people were Josephine's domain. Still, she was happy to not have to make small talk while she was in the middle of trying to accomplish something important.

It wasn't until she reached the first door towards the war room that she encountered any obstacle. Iron Bull had plenty of time to close the distance between them, and as she passed through the door she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder that she promptly shrugged off.

"I swear to the Maker, Bull, you had better not come between me and this drink right now," she muttered, turning to look at him.

The Iron Bull could fill a doorway like no one she'd ever known. He looked taken aback, staring down at her with his one eye fixed sternly on her expression, confusion knitting his brows. Bull looked a little stupid when he was confused. She felt she should offer him some explanation, but found she had nothing to offer. Whatever she was dealing with right now was hers to shoulder and Bull didn't deserve to be burdened with it. She was upset, but that didn't give her an excuse to take it out on him. She sighed.

"You should join me," she added, quickly turning left and making her way down to the cellar without waiting for a reply. Still, she found she was relieved to hear a small chuckle follow her as she descended the stairs. It was odd, really. Even though he'd literally just pounded her into the ground, she always felt safer with Iron Bull at her back.

They said nothing on the way. Bull wasn't usually one to waste words in general. Often, in conversation with him, she found herself doing more talking than listening and she found his open-mindedness refreshing amidst the strong opinions usually present in her inner circle. Bull didn't care about the mage-templar war or even the civil war in Orlais. He wasn't interested in telling her how to run things, like Cassandra or Vivian sometimes were, he just cared about results and didn't fuss over the details.

At the end of the hall she found the cellar, where she kept her most prized spirits that she'd collected in her adventures. There was stuff here she knew she could sell for a small fortune in Orlais, but to her, they were personal treasures. The memories she'd acquired in finding them were made to be shared with friends, and she had the perfect bottle in mind for present company. She looked over the dusty racks until she saw the one she sought. It was a dark green bottle with a fat, rounded base, adorned with Bloodstone lattice and an etched label. Gingerly taking it from its home, she turned the bottle around to show Bull. He laughed.

* * *

 **author's note: I had more stuff here describing what was going through the Inquisitor's head and dialogue on the way to the cellar, along with some dialogue after but then I hit backspace and lost about 500 words and I was too disheartened by the loss to write it again so we're going to cover that in the next chapter.  
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 **'Save early, save often' isn't just a good policy for video games!**


	3. Chapter 3

They were not even halfway through the bottle of Dragon Piss and already Liara felt pleasant, tingling warmth spreading through her entire body straight down to her toes. She began to fear that she would melt straight into the floor if they were to finish the bottle. Iron Bull sat across from her on the basement floor just outside the cellar, propped against a pillar with the bottle between them. Though the ground was hard, the torchlight dim, and the drink stiffer than she liked, she was feeling more like herself than she had in a while. It hadn't taken long for her to forgive her previous outrage at Bull. They shared laughs as they passed the bottle back and forth, Bull pantomiming the fight, causing them both to howl with laughter.

"You're a terrible body guard," she said, holding her sides as she tried to control her laughter. She had meant to at least pretend to sound stern, but a laugh bubbled out of her."I don't think bodyguards are supposed to beat up the person they're guarding."

"I'm a _great_ bodyguard." He smiled. "You're still alive, aren't you? That's really the best you can hope for. In your circumstances, I mean. I've never had to guard someone from an Archdemon and giant holes in the sky before so... you're welcome."

She simply shook her head. It was true, she realized. When she'd set out from her clan, she'd never expected that her life would turn out this way. Most of Thedas either believed she was sent by Andraste herself, or wanted to kill her. Not that the two were mutually exclusive by any stretch. Between the cults, the Venatori, and the Chantry she was certain nobody was particularly happy to see a Dalish elf given so much authority over religious matters. There was no way she could have prepared for anything she'd endured since the conclave was destroyed. If it hadn't been for her inner circle, she would've been dead a hundred times over already.

"You're something else, you know that?" She laughed, "Those recruits, they're never going to take me seriously now. I'm ruined. You've ruined the Inquisition." By the dread wolf, did she really sound like that? Her tongue felt thick and heavy with the booze.

He laughed a deep belly laugh and the sound echoed off the walls. Bull had a contagious laugh; the kind that made you feel safe to laugh with him.

"Hey!" He protested, "there's no shame in losing to me. I mean, Have you seen me?" She arched an eyebrow, to which Iron Bull responded by puffing up his chest and flexing. He looked at his own muscles, then nodded to her with a mischievous, knowing grin. "See? Look at that! There was no way you were going to win."

She giggled, shaking her head, and shoved the bottle at him, which he accepted greedily and took another swig.

"Ass," she proclaimed, "I had you. I've beaten you plenty of times. We both know that if there were no barrier, you would've been dead. All those little cuts slowing you down? You're not even wearing armor, you idiot." She tried not to stare at his still-flexed chest, but torchlight flickered over him, dancing in the sheen of sweat that still clung to him. It was impossible to miss that Iron Bull was nothing but muscle, decorated in dozens of scars. In spite of that, the scars did nothing to detract from how handsome he was, or the strange dangerously erotic appeal he had. As much as she ridiculed the tavern girls and Orlesian ladies that fawned over him, she couldn't deny that he inspired a unique combination of lust and fear - a fact he seemed to greatly enjoy taking advantage of.

She watched him as he drank, mesmerized. She stared at the swell of his adams apple and the muscles of his neck as they met his chin. She tried to look away before he saw her looking but she thought by the glimmer in his eye that he may have caught her staring, but he decided to ignore it.

"No no," he protested, taking another long drink and letting out an exhilarated shout. "You're good, don't get me wrong, but I had that one easy."

"Oh yeah," she challenged, looking at back at him with a smile, "how the void do you figure that?" She assumed he was joking, trying to antagonize her. All things considered, she'd almost beaten him - assuming he'd actually stopped fighting once the barrier broke. She frowned a little unconsciously at that; Bull might not have necessarily played by the rules if he'd really wanted to win. She still didn't know why he'd come at her the way he had or what he expected the outcome to be.

"Boss..." He leveled a stare at her, " you haven't exactly been at your best lately."

She found herself suddenly unable to meet his gaze. She stole the bottle from his hands and took another drink but had no reply to his accusation. She knew it was true, but she didn't exactly like where this conversation was going. Or who it reminded her of.

He was right, of course. She knew he was. How could she be at her best when she wasn't sure who she was anymore? _Was_ she Inquisitor Laira Lavellan anymore? Or was it just Inquisitor? The title made her feel hollow in the wake of what had passed between her and Solas. All at once, she had lost her lover and her identity as one of the People, leaving her reeling. Would her clan even recognize her as one of their own anymore without her vallaslin? She had never heard of a Dalish without the blood writing. Some clans accepted city elves into their midst, but everyone who saw them instantly knew they were outsiders and were not truly trusted or held to the same standards. If she wasn't a Lavellan anymore, who was she? What did her best even look like?

A long moment of silence passed before Iron Bull finally spoke.

"Hey, look. I don't want to get in your business. But this moping isn't you." She looked up at him, bracing herself for that same pitying look that Cullen had when she'd first seen him this morning. But Bull surprised her. He didn't look at her with concern or any of the worry that she saw from the others lately. Instead, he had that same amused expression fixed to his face that he usually did. Bull was just Bull.

"You know, I expected you to be breaking in doors," he said, "bashing skulls! Killing shit! Getting angry! _That's_ what I was hoping to get from you in the arena. You need to get over this crap."

Again, she didn't have a response. She heard the words he said and felt the truth of them. She had even thought to herself that if she could work through her anger, she would be fine. Anger and violence were how she'd dealt with so many of the obstacles she faced, especially in the past few months. But she found herself unable to be upset with Solas at what had happened. Somehow being with him had changed something in her, softened her, in ways she couldn't explain. The Dalish had raised her to adaptable, to adjust to constant change. Since she'd left them, the Inquisition had become her home. At first she'd resented Solas and his obvious and at times seemingly irrational contempt for the Dalish, but the more she talked with him, the more he changed the way she'd come to think. Solas was a new world - a world of color, spirits, and dreams and he'd showed her how to unlock parts of herself that she'd been taught to silence or ignore. She'd talked to Mercy, Compassion, and Hope, pure and untainted by shemlen greed, elven suspicion, or the fear that seemed to permeate all of Thedas in the wake of the blights and civil war. In the end, she'd chosen to abandon even the vallaslin, to symbolize that she was casting off her ties to the Dalish and their suspicion and xenophobia in favor of a kinder life - one she'd envisioned Solas would be a part of.

And then immediately after, he'd left her.

She had wanted to be angry at Solas; of course she had. It would have been easier to throw away all the parts of her that cared for him after he left. She could have allowed herself to harden and become bitter in order to move on. But she held on to the soft moments in dreams when he took her to the Fade and she felt - truly _felt -_ love surround her like a physical presence. Nothing in the waking world compared to the calm and contentment she was able to achieve when Solas was her guide and her love. The thought of perverting those moments with bitterness and hate filled her mouth with bile. It was too hard. As much as she wanted to be done with it, her feelings remained. And they were torturing her.

The Iron Bull leaned forward suddenly. He was smiling. It was a soft, jovial smile, but it was still a Bull smile, full of mischief. His voice was all silk and sex as he whispered - as much as Bull was capable of whispering, "If you need help getting over him, I've got just the trick."

Liara's head to snapped back, eyes wide with panic, and The Iron Bull laughed. What was he playing at?

"I've got this move I've been wanting to try," he said, with a dark glint in his eye, "but I need a partner, preferably an elf, and Sera already said no."

That didn't exactly clear her suspicion. Still, he couldn't possibly be suggesting what he clearly wanted her to think he was suggesting. It was almost laughable that she was even worried. If Iron Bull had developed a craving for elven women, he wouldn't have asked Sera. Not when the serving girls were so easily available, as she'd heard they were - at least for him. She stared at him through dangerously narrowed eyes.

"Well, Bull," she cautioned, "if the c _razy_ elf said no, then I'm going to have to decline. And do I even _want_ to know what you're talking about?"

"Bah! You're a spoilsport!" He grunted. "Why are you paying me to be your creative combat consultant if nobody wants to hear my great ideas?"

She offered a derisive snort in reply. "Pretty sure we're not paying you for that; that just comes with." She stole the bottle from him and threw back a healthy swig, coughing as it burned on the way down.

"Yeah, I'm loaded with perks like that." He winked at her, an expression that essentially looked like an awkwardly long blink, and she rolled her eyes. Bull was ridiculous and clearly enjoyed teasing her, but throwing back with him was beginning to make her feel like her old self again.

She'd been avoiding seeing her inner circle and advisers as much as possible lately because she didn't want to deal with their pitying glances or answer their questions but maybe this was the best thing for her. Maybe she didn't give her friends enough credit. She tapped her nails on the bottle, watching the torchlight play on the dark glass. She marveled that somehow the bottle seemed to be getting heavier, despite having lost most of its contents by now. When had that happened? She felt good. Really really good.

"You know, boss, I'm really glad you came out today." Iron Bull said. "You've been sidelined too long. We should go out and kill some shit."

She grunted an affirmation. "'s no shortage of stuff to kill," she agreed. Was she slurring? She felt like she could barely hear herself. "You wouldn't think there'd be anyone left to kill out there. You know?"

It really puzzled Liara that they never seemed to run out of things or people to kill. In her current state, it actually began to feel a little frightening - what if she _never_ ran out of enemies? Before she'd been the Inquisitor, she could expect to go wandering through a city, or the woods, or really anywhere without being physically harassed. There had always been templars to avoid, sure, but never in her life had so many of her encounters about the countryside been so fatal. Demons, mages, templars, bandits, darkspawn, and undead were in everywhere she went and were hostile almost as soon as they laid eyes on her. It was a wonder that any sane person would venture to speak to her at all these days - much less attack her. Blood stained every single thing she owned, despite the magical enchantments put in place to prevent that such that it must've been obvious to anyone that saw her that she lived death every day. She had become so accustomed to attacking first that she actually found herself at a loss when her enemies tried to engage her in conversation. When Calpernia had walked away at the Well of Sorrows she'd expected treachery for almost an entire minute before Morrigan had arrived and broken her stupefied trance.

Was she really saving the world anymore? Or was she just a weapon, being aimed by her advisers, to destroy a "greater evil"? Her hand itched.

The fact was, the holes in the Veil were bad and closing them made the mark on her hand feel less miserable; trying to think about anything bigger made her head feel heavy. Or maybe that was the drink. Her tongue felt thick and her throat was parched, prompting her to take another drink of the traitorous liquid in her hands.

"Bull," said said, looking at him from under heavy eyelids, "is the Inquisition suppos'd t'be this? D'you ever think about what if someone else were in charge? If we weren't heroes and we just went where the boss told us?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her and glanced suspiciously at the bottle in her hands, which she offered to him, happy not to have the temptation so close within reach.

"I _do_ go where the boss tells me," he said slowly, "but, yes, I think I know what you're getting at." He propped a knee, tossed an arm over it, and leaned towards her, looking in her eyes with that dangerous intensity she'd seen when he'd first come at her in the arena. "Tell me, Liara, do you remember the conversation we had when you first recruited me? About leadership?"

Her memory was a little fuzzy at the moment. After she'd recruited him they'd gone back to Haven, but it felt like it'd been ages since they'd moved in to Skyhold. Everything before she became Inquisitor seemed almost like a dream. It was hard to imagine that once she was a carefully-watched captive/guest, allowed freedom only because it benefited the newly formed Inquisition. Her face screwed up as she tried to recall the conversation in question but she turned up nothing noteworthy. She shrugged.

"You picked the job for yourself, boss." He said, frowning. "Nobody told you to recruit anyone. You had leads, you saw a way to increase your own power, and you took it. I know right now you're probably thinking Red could be leading this mess, but I don't think for a second you would've let anyone else run this show. You were always going to lead. When we were at Haven you said, 'maybe I should lead the Inquisition'. You laughed, but that bullshit never fooled me."

Now that he said it, she vaguely recalled the conversation. He'd said it was a very Qunari thing to say. Not knowing much about the Qun at the time, she assumed it was a backhanded compliment and hasn't given it much thought. She wasn't even entirely sure why she would've said that to him, given her early days in the Inquisition.

"When I got a weapon back in my hand again after they let me out," she said, "I'd have killed Cassandra if I'd thought I had a chance." The Admission made her feel a little guilty."Until Solas took my hand and made me close that first rift, I just wanted to get away. Even after. I thought, if I just kept gaining power, I could leave. I dunno. I guess I failed. Everything I did benefited the Inquisition. Not me. And now s'too late."

"That's a load of crap." He said flatly.

"What?"

"You wouldn't leave the world to Corypheus and his demon. Do you have any idea how we found you after Haven? You were covered in blood. Yours, the 'Vints, the demons. You had broken bones and you were cold as death. We took the mountain pass a long fucking ways, boss, and we didn't stop until we were safe. You say you wanted out? That's shit. You didn't die there, and you didn't leave after. That sing songy crap didn't do it for me, and I know you're no Andrastian yourself, but you got right back up, lead us to Skyhold, and took that sword into your hands yourself. Don't lie about what you wanted just because it didn't all go perfect."

She stared at him in shocked indignation for a moment before she realized her mouth was open and closed it, looking off at the wall. There was a world of difference between doing what it took to survive and positioning herself as a leader. But maybe he was right about her. Fuck. She could've left. What was happening to her? Was she really regretting the steps she'd taken to get here just because she'd had to give up her people and her lover in the process? She reeled back her feelings and clumsily pushed her hair back.

"Yeah." She finally admitted. "Yeah. You're right. M'sorry. I dunno why I said that." Bull had embarrassed her enough for one day; she didn't need to stay and help him. This was why she kept herself in her room. And today had started off so well. She stood up, feeling a need to get outside and clear her head.

As soon as she stood, she knew she'd made a terrible mistake. Her vision went immediately dark and she felt herself falling.

The nearly empty bottle of Dragon Piss was still clattering around the floor when she came to and remembered where she was, seconds later. She must have stumbled. Bull had caught her, and he swiftly lifted her from the ground to pull her up into his arms against his chest.

"Woa-h there," he said, looking down at her, "you ok? Let's get you to a healer. Think you might've poisoned yourself."

She groaned. "I'm fine." She tried pushing away from him but he held her still, his arms fully and powerfully holding her captive against his muscled chest.

She could've tried harder to escape his grip. She probably shouldn't be showing this amount of weakness right now. It would be best for her to have him quickly and quietly bring her a restorative while she waited in the quiet underground of her keep, but she found she didn't want to. It felt so good to be held, even for so foolish a reason. Solas had never been very intimate with her. At least, not physically.

She almost giggled, trying to imagine Solas carrying her like this. Her feet dangled in the air, her legs hanging from knees, which were trapped in one of Bull's steel grip, his arm wrapped under her thighs, just under her buttocks. His other arm was under her shoulders, wrapping her and scooping her towards him. The only thing she could see but his scarred ashen skin was just a glimpse of the wall from over his shoulder, and of the two views, she found she didn't really have a good excuse not to look at him. Still, she resisted noticing, yet again, that his strange alien skin was stretched over generous swells of muscle that were taut with control and power as he held her to him. She was close enough that if she turned her head, she could've brushed her lips against that odd glowing skin, could taste the sweet salt of dry sweat that she smelled on him. He was so warm. Despite her misgivings about Solas and her guilt at being in the state she was in now, it took a surprising amount of what little willpower she currently had to resist nuzzling into him.

"No healer." She grumbled. "M'just tired. It's been a long day. I did stuff today." She might have giggled, but she didn't mean to. Did she think she was being clever, she wondered, or was she just making light of her own inaction of late? Gods, but he smelled heavenly. It was hard to think, so thoroughly surrounded by his harsh musk.

"Yes you did." He chuckled. "No healer," he allowed, "but you're done for the day until you get a restorative in you. Thankfully I don't think we wasted too much of that booze."

She marveled that he seemed to be relatively unaffected by the alcohol. Were Qunari just resistant to poison? She briefly wondered if it were possible someone had fermented actual dragon piss and that Iron Bull was supernaturally invigorated by it rather than intoxicated. He did smell rather dragony, but that was practically normal for Bull. Warmth rolled off his bare chest, carrying a dragon's heat that flooded and surrounded her. He was so different from Solas, she observed. Solas was a man of cool, of even temper and well-placed dream-like affectionate love. The Iron Bull could not have been more dissimilar. Bull was a man who lived fully in reality, of searing intensity and hot passions.

"I'm being really dumb lately," she muttered, rolling into him to hide her face. Maybe he wouldn't notice that her cheeks were flushed, that her eyes seemed to be flooded with a desire she shouldn't have right now, or that, as she turned, her lips stayed parted after she'd finished speaking as she battled with the urge to brush them against the crest of his generously muscled chest.

"Yeah, I know boss."

She rolled back to look up at him. From here she could see his firm, pointed chin, lined with patches of dark stubble. She studied the gently amused smile that touched his lips and light, jovial glint in his eye as he looked down at her. During many of the difficult times that punctuated what was now her life, she counted herself fortunate that Bull could laugh at the crazy shit they did and bring her back to reality. "Nob'dy else can do this. I know that," she said, tongue thick, "it has t'be me. It's just hard. It's a lot."

Bull grunted. They fell into a comfortable silence as he carried her up the stairs. She was floating, watching the torches disappear behind them from over his shoulder and listening to his breathing grow heavier as they neared the top. He was careful to make sure she didn't bang her feet in the doorways as he cautiously edged them through, pulling her closer each time they approached. When they at last entered the judgement hall, she heard a brief commotion but kept her face turned towards Bull, glancing at the gawkers behind them only when he approached the door to her quarters. She probably should've found some excuse to walk herself through the hall at least. She was certain people would talk after seeing her being carried by Iron Bull up to her room in such a manner. Especially with the reputation he had. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the blissful heaviness behind her eyelids that kept her from worrying for the moment. Let them talk for now.

Once they were safely behind the door and on their way up the long stairway to her room, Iron Bull spoke. "Hey, uh, I know it's none of my business and all, but Solas shouldn't have left you like he did. For what it's worth, I'm sorry that happened, Liara." She thrilled when he said her name. It was so unexpectedly tender from him, and she felt the reverberations in his chest as he spoke as if they shot a direct line into her own heart. "I'm not the best person to talk to about that crap... but I'm here. If you need it. I mean, I'd rather help you beat stuff up. But, yeah..."

She shook her head. "I don't need to talk." She was surprised to find that it was true at the moment. Even as he reminded her of what she had lost, she didn't feel the same stinging emptiness right now that she'd been so affected by just hours before.

When at last he'd carried her all the way up the stairs, he was breathing much more heavily and his skin had begun to prickle with sweat. The damp of it darkened her leathers where their bodies met, but she didn't mind. He began to take her over to the bed, but she directed him to the balcony instead. The cool air washed over them both, and he laid her down gently against the balcony wall with a grunt before standing back up.

"I'll be right back with that potion, boss," he said, turning to go.

"Wait," she called, the word tumbling out with an urgency that surprised her. "Can you stay? Just for a bit? Make sure I don't fall?" Of course, she was in no danger of falling from here, but the lie was an easy excuse to keep him with her. When he turned back toward her she sighed with relief.

"Of course," he said, sitting down next to her. She leaned into him and he shifted to accommodate her, allowing her to rest inside his arm and against his chest. For a while they said nothing. She looked over the mountains and let the steady sound of Bull's breathing and the rising and falling of his chest to settle her into blissful comfort. Skyhold was remarkable. If not for Solas, this place would have probably remained empty. She doubted if the tenuous group that had been the Inquisition at the time would have survived the destruction of Haven without it. Here, the Inquisition had come into power; here, it had grown; here, they rebuilt. They had come so far, and yet she remained nervous that so much was still uncertain.

"Bull," she said tentatively, gazing across the cool mountain stillness. "D'you think we can do this? Can we kill an ancient darkspawn Vint-god 'n stop all these demons from breakin' the whole world?"

He sighed. "We're definitely going to do it," he said, with a confidence that made her look up at him. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, eyebrow drawn in concentration.

"How d'you know?"

"You said it yourself, boss, nobody else can do it. Besides, we're good at killing shit."

"Liara," she said impulsively. He looked down at her, head cocked in confusion."Call me Liara. N'body says my name anymore."

"Oh. Yeah, sure bo... Liara. I can do that." That same funny elation caught her throat as he said it. That was who she wanted to be, for now. Nobody's boss, no Inquisition, no clan title - just Liara. She wanted him to say it again. She wanted to drag it out of him. She wanted...

She sat up, rising to press her lips suddenly, openly, to his. For a moment, he did not react. His arm hung around her loosely and her own open lips dragged faintly against his closed, unresponsive mouth. But then, at last, they did part ever so slightly and he let her in. His arm settled back around her gently and she pressed herself against his chest as she cautiously let her tongue wash over his lips and into his hot mouth. She explored him there, holding a hand against the muscled chest she had so admired, as she leaned in to him. He allowed her to roam but did not move to deepen the kiss, his wide lips held firm, moving only ever so gently with hers. As she dared to find his tongue with hers, she felt his lips tighten into a smile and the beginnings of a laugh rumbled through his chest as he placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pulled her away from him. For a moment, she was confused as he moved to stand again, pulling her with him back through the balcony doors and back towards the bed.

A nervous knot began to form in her belly. Was she really ready to jump into bed with this man? So soon after her heart was broken? Gods, she couldn't do this! But she was so tired of thinking. If Bull could just lead her, distract her from that feeling of responsibility that came with being 'the boss', with being the 'Inquisitor'. And so, she walked behind him, obediently, even as a mix of fear, anticipation, and - Maker, was that eagerness she was feeling? - settled heavy within her.

"You're very drunk," he said as he pulled her alongside him and guided her to the edge of the bed. Tenderly, he brushed the hair away from her face, his fingertips leaving a lingering red-hot trail on her cheek as he did so, and he laid a kiss on her forehead that burned like a brand. Suddenly his touch was gone completely and she sat on the edge of the bed, watching him turn towards the stairs. "I'm going to get you some food from the kitchens and a tonic."

"Just relax there for a bit," he called over his shoulder with a wave behind him as he walked away and descended out of view. She heard his footsteps echo up to her gradually quiet until at last he was gone. She blinked at the vacant spot before her where once he stood. Will wonders never cease, she mused. Bull was a mystery. She raised a hand to her lips, remembering the way they'd felt when she'd melted them to his. A blush crept into her cheeks but she smiled, deliriously drunk on kisses and harsh liquor as she fell back onto the bed and allowed the tension to leave her body as she waited for his return.

She was dead to the world when he arrived several minutes later, closed all the windows, and left the plate of food and restorative potion next to the bed.

* * *

 **Notes:** _WHEW! Made it! I have forced that chapter out over several settings and many many stages of editing so please forgive what I'm sure are numerous inconsistencies in tone! Thanks for being patient with me up to this point. I have so much more planned so I hope you'll stick it out and follow the story (infrequent though my updates are). If you haven't already, check out any of the number of awesome stories by **Seab1rds0ng** , whose works continue to inspire me and push me forward._


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: Hey ya'll, sorry it took me so long to get this up here. I've kind of been struggling to find my muse. I can always find excuses, but I haven't forgotten this story. Do I know where it's going? Absolutely not. I re-wrote this chapter like twice and I still don't think it's done but I thought I should reward those of you nice enough to follow me by publishing something, so here it is! Thanks for being patient with me!**

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She knew the dream before it began. That same place by the waterfall, full moon hanging bright in the sky. In a moment, she knew, the hands that she loved would take away her face and leave her alone with naught but shadows and fear. Dread sat heavy in the pit of her stomach as she waited for Solas to appear beside her on the ground, to hold her in his arms, and to say such sweet words as to fill her with hope– even as she knew it was meaningless to wish he'd stay. If only she could not have this cursed dream. She squeezed her eyes shut. It was a silly thing to do in a dream. She could still feel the dream around her and despaired that there was nothing she could do.

Solas had tried to teach her to control her dreams before, believing her connection to the anchor would allow her some special power over the fade, but as much as she tried to control this particular dream, the outcome had remained unchanged. Always that same silver mask, always the abandonment, always the howling in the darkness. Her memory of this night was too strong, and kept her locked and pulled into this hollow horror show.

The dream was stiller than usual, it seemed. She waited for something to happen. Solas should be here soon. Why was he not here already? Every other time, the scene was already in motion by the time she arrived; forcing her into the passive role where she submitted to the nightmare. Time meant little in the dream, but it seemed like forever passed without Solas appearing.

The moon still kept the shadows at bay with its steadfast glow, but she heard no wolf, and saw no one when she opened her eyes. How did time work when a dream stood still, she wondered? Was she to wait here for the dream to resolve? Should she try to rouse herself, before the traitorous elf could betray her again? And what did it mean that he didn't show up? Worse, what did it say about her that she wanted him to, even knowing what it would do to her?

She sighed, the sound of it carrying a weight that resonated in this space and seemed to darken the sky just a bit more. She heaved herself off the ground and padded to the water's edge. The day Solas had left her, she'd wandered this space in a daze, probably for hours, eventually coming to rest at a small pool to stare at her reflection as tears stung her face over the spaces where the lines of her vallaslin had been.

She imagined that the pool might actually be filled with her tears – a physical representation of her sorrow and abandonment in this world of thoughts and emotions. She feared to go near it in the dream, not knowing what she could see in the water's surface.

But dream-Solas hadn't taken her marks yet here. Would they still be on her face in the dream? The pool was so near her now. All she had to do was lean over to see…

Suddenly she could sense that she wasn't alone anymore.

At the corner of her vision, a bonfire blazed. The heat off of it was instantly palpable, manifesting all at once and gleaming off the waterfall, lighting the dark corners where the moon didn't shine. She turned towards the beacon, but when she looked for the source, she didn't see it. Confused, she looked back towards the water. The fire was there again, in the corner of her eye, but she saw no light there when she looked for it. She stared, puzzled, at the space where she knew the fire was. She could feel something there. The warmth remained, but she still saw nothing.

She closed her eyes again, now intrigued at the odd turns her dream was taking. Was something worse to happen? Was Solas here and masking his presence? She tried to dispel whatever illusion was hiding the flame, the way Solas had taught her in their trips in the fade. The heat was still there and it gave her something to focus on as she tried to feel the difference between what was and wasn't there. She knew where it was, but as she reached for that space within the dream, the fire began to feel alive… and familiar.

She was ripped out of her dream to find herself in her bed, atop the covers and unsure of what had roused her. The fog of her drunkenness still hung around her in the now darkening room. She must've been asleep for long enough for the sun to start going down, but she still felt drowsy with sleep and foggy from the wine. She felt feverishly hot, as though the room were a hundred degrees. There was something else around the room that seemed off somehow. Besides the sensual sunset light, the heavy heat, and the drunken drowsiness, there was a permeating essence of sexuality throughout the room that Liara couldn't quite put her finger on.

Tense, hot pressure filled the room, like a siren song of seduction that enveloped her and made the space between her legs ache exquisitely. Her whole body felt tense, like a tightly coiled snake, winding ever tighter with a building need for sexual relief. She twisted, but could not fully turn, and when she tried to move her arms she found that they would not respond to her. She whimpered at the frustration she was unable to release, whining at her drunken helpless at not being able to figure out why her body would do nothing she told it to, but proceeded to ache all the harder.

A familiar chuckle to her right made her turn to find someone lying next to her, the sunset dancing through the windows behind the figure made it hard to see clearly, but the form was unmistakably the Iron Bull.

"Bull?" she asked, tentatively, squinting to make him out through the light.

She couldn't remember him answering, but she felt one large, hot hand on her breast, pressing around it in slow, circular motions. She might've protested. She probably should've been protesting. But she couldn't find her voice. The need within her was too great, and at the time she couldn't think of a single reason why she shouldn't allow him to touch her. Isn't this what she'd wanted when she'd kissed him?

Had she kissed him? Why did that seem like a far away dream?

It was too hard to think. His touch was an anchoring force – the only thing she could focus on. His mouth settled over her right breast and his tongue and teeth teased breathy moans from her while his hand migrated slowly lower.

When had her clothes come off?

His fingertips burned like brands, searing away her questions, her reservations, and her anxiety wherever they touched. She arched into him, whimpering softly as she tried to press more fully into him as he continued to blaze a path with his hand lower and lower, so low that at any point she should stop him. And yet, when he withdrew his touch, she gasped at the sudden emptiness. She cried out in frustration and tried to reach out, but her arms still refused to do her bidding.

And then he was back. Hot breath covered her neck between wet, open-mouthed kisses as a huge, strong hand came down hard over her sex, grinding roughly over the bundle of nerves at the top of her slit. There was no gentleness or patience in his touch as he ground against her, sending near-magical waves of fire through her body in rhythmic, forceful strokes. It was agony. It was ecstasy. Oh, gods, she needed to tell him to stop. Not stop. Never stop. But, if he could just slow down… if she could at least get a handle on the overwhelming sensations he was relentlessly assaulting her with..

"Please. Bull, please…" She whined, pleading with him, but didn't know what she was begging him for.

He was urgent and incessant, forcing her quickly, almost painfully to the breaking point of pleasure. She bucked against him, but to escape him or to grind harder against him, she couldn't say. At some point she began yelling, but the words were beyond sense. The world was pure sensation, without meaning.

When she turned, she could see Bull staring back at her, knew he was there, but she registered nothing but the black hungry look in his eye and the sunset flaring orange behind him. Everything was concentrated on the feel of his rough hand meticulously manipulating the pearl of pleasure atop her sex. She was beyond sight. There was only the fire of his hand melting into her flesh, pushing her into the burning sunset of her own ecstasy. She tried to fight it off, to deny herself of that peak, so soon after it began but there was nothing she could do. He held her down firmly, quickening his pace as she thrashed beneath him. Her helplessness, her inability to deny him, and her unapologetic need for him to continue all compounded her shame as she crested the edge of desire with a shattering force unlike any she'd ever known.

She was plastered to the sheets, panting breathlessly for several minutes before she realized her eyes were closed. Blinking them open, she saw soft light leaving small rainbows on the western wall and stared at them in dreamlike wonder, utterly entranced. Looking at them evoked the most curious feeling that she couldn't place. She sighed, utterly content, as though coming out of a deep sleep.

There was a perfect quiet in the room around her, almost as if she were completely alone on the entire mountaintop.

Didn't she have a lover with her?

She attempted to turn but her arms were stubbornly asleep underneath her chest, thick leather bracers pressing uncomfortable into her wrists. She groaned at the effort of unfurling her limbs from under her, pinpricks of painful sensations trailed down her forearms and into her hands as she placed them on the bed and pushed herself over onto her back. She frowned at the ceiling, slowly putting together all the uncomfortable facts that were compiling into one horrible realization.

It was morning. She'd spent the night alone. In the unforgiving light of day, the events of the night became more clear; her dream hadn't ended when she'd left the waterfall. She'd had a wine-fueled sex dream after attempting to fling herself on her friend and comrade.

There was no longer any reason to get out of bed. Of all the stupid, qunari-buggering things to do, she'd gone and started drinking alone with The Iron –fucking-Bull. She tossed herself back over, groaning into the mattress. The more she remembered about the previous night the more embarrassed she became. Had she really demanded he call her by her name? Halla-mother preserve her, it was going to be a rough morning.

She'd kissed him. Void, worse than that, she'd wanted more.

Her head ached a dull pounding beneath her temples that was somewhere between a stress headache and a wine hangover. She lay in bed for several minutes, shutting her eyes hard against the light and the embarrassed recollection of the previous night. He would remember, no doubt. At least Iron Bull wasn't exactly a kiss and tell kind of guy. Unless it amused him. Unless it made someone uncomfortable. Oh, gods, she was going to be hearing about this for weeks. She groaned into the bed as she pushed herself up with her fists.

Her arms were stiff and tingling, the protested as she raised herself to sit on the bed, legs dangling over the edge while she contemplated the effort it would take to actually make herself start the day and strip herself from her armor. In usual Dalish fashion, her feet, at least, were free of the bondage of armor. The feel of the cold floor beneath her served to somewhat rejuvenate her tired limbs as she stood. Her whole body ached from sleeping in her armor and she moved gingerly to remove each piece, one horrible strap at a time until she was stripped of the leathers and their bindings. Underneath her breastplate, the fabric of her tunic was nearly soaked and it clung to her chest in odd bunches.

No wonder she'd felt like she was on fire, she thought, as she peeled the wet garment carefully over her head to plop amidst the leathers. She almost laughed as she stared down at the disaster that was her chest at that moment. A heavy sheen of sticky sweat sat in deep, red fabric wrinkles and armor ridges that lined the pink, irritated skin of her breasts and torso. Her arms were no better; they too looked abused and suffocated, in addition to ringing with displeasure. She made an effort to stretch, noting with distaste that she smelled as bad as if she'd been sleeping in the tannery. She'd be needing a bath as soon as possible.

It astonished her how spoiled she'd become during her time with the Inquisition. She gone from being just another Dalish scout, spending days on end with her fellow hunters sleeping in the woods and literally living in her armor to being the most powerful and awed elf in all of Thedas. Her halls entertained esteemed dignitaries and emissaries from Val Royeaux, Rivain, and Antiva. The spies in her employ ranged from feared and prestigious Tevinter magisters, to the lowly Friends of Red Jenny. With an army larger and more unified than several kingdoms in southern Thedas, she was expected, as the Inquisition's leader, to maintain a level of hygiene and decorum that would have previously boggled the mind.

She shimmied out of her trousers, which were equally slick with sweat, and stepped out of them, kicking them towards the pile of discarded clothes as she paced towards the balcony doors. The cold morning air felt wonderfully refreshing on her sweat-soaked skin as she opened the doors. Gooseflesh prickled along her entire body as she stood in the morning light and looked over the mountains.

She didn't entirely relish the idea of facing another day, especially after how yesterday had turned out. After yesterday had started so well.

It must've been early morning in Skyhold. Birds were tittering excitedly; she could vaguely smell the morning stew from the barracks; and her hangover felt like a well-rested, mild throb. She sat back down on the bed and massaged her temples. That would be the last time she opened a bottle from her private stores for anything short of sharing a bottle for a large game of Wicked Grace.

Looking up, her gaze settled upon the desk across her bed. The small green bottle of restorative was shining beside a covered platter of neglected food - another reminder of what an ass she'd been. She threw back the bottle and felt the stiffness of her limbs fading while her headache receded and her skin began to resume its normal color. Sadly the potion did nothing for her odor. She would still need a wash.

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 **Author's note: I know! AUGGGGH! lol thanks for reading, more drama to follow!**


	5. Chapter 5

FILLER CHAPTER TO GET BACK INTO THE SWING OF THINGS:

Sorry all! I was super preoccupied with another story for a while and then I got a ton of overtime at work, but someone reminded me that I still have wonderful readers who have been ultra patient with me. Oh, also Seab1rds0ng wrote this really long, really awesome, really (REALLY!) smutty CullenxHawke story that I have just been IN LOVE with and reading that has kept me pretty full-up on my Inquisition quota. As you know, Trespasser came out now and it has more of our favorite Elven heartbreaker in it. The tears are real.

Anyway, here's a filler chapter to get back into writing Dragon Age fanfic.

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Liara soaked in the tub, massaging the remainder of her stiffness out of her legs with her thumbs and trying to push the events of last night from her mind.

She vaguely remembered floating up to her room with a giddy lightness in her head. Drunk memories were such vividly vague little mysteries! She could remember, with surprising clarity the bright beautiful color of the stone walls as they passed by her and how they seemed so brand new and lovely and yet she couldn't be certain if she'd walked up the stairs or even if she'd been carried. How could one remember that they _had_ traveled somewhere but not how?

He had carried her, hadn't he? He must've. Oh, gods, where had he put his hands? She gave her legs a self-conscious little rub and placed her forearm behind her back, trying to imagine how his arms might've felt there. But it sparked no memories. She sank back into the tub, trying to drown the strange mixture of embarrassment and excitement under the safe warm obfuscation of the tub's waters.

What had happened before the floating? She remembered feeling angry and upset at something in the dim candlelit glow of the cellar. But after that, the clatter of a bottle rolling across the floor and a compressed feeling of warmth were all so dreamlike that she couldn't be certain if they were even memories at all. Then there were no memories but beautiful glimmering gray walls of stone and flesh floating beside her, until she was sitting outside on the balcony, breathing in cool, rejuvenating air.

And then Bull was beside her and the air was hot and thick with a heady fog that clouded her mind and her memories.

The kiss.

She sank further into the tub, submersing herself to cover the blush that was spreading to tips of her ears. Gods be damned. She shouldn't be thinking about this now. Or possibly ever. She had to think of some way to apologize to Bull for her behavior. And she would definitely _not_ be mentioning her dream to anyone anytime soon.

In spite of everything that had happened yesterday – getting humiliating ground-pounded in front of her troops and getting stupid drunk and coming on to her friend – she felt amazingly refreshed for perhaps the first time since Solas had disappeared.

Her fingertips unconsciously traced her cheeks where she could almost feel the phantom marks of her missing vallaslin. Their absence was only part of a greater sense of loss she had carried since that day. It wasn't fair of him. If she'd known he would leave, would she have kept the marks? If for no other reason than to still feel like she was a part of something? She sighed.

Maybe it was precisely because she was already trying to brush off the embarrassing events of yesterday, but for some reason she didn't feel like devoting her resources to feeling sorry for herself anymore. She'd already mourned enough and she had more immediate problems than moping.

She stood up in the bath, grabbed the towel on the chair and proceeded to dry off her hair before stepping out of the tub and on to the cold stone floor of her room. It was nearly midday by now and the clamor of Skyhold was in full swing. With the balcony window cracked, she could hear the sounds of the courtyard as soldiers ran through drills and caravans arrived with refugees, recruits, merchants, dignitaries, and goods for the keep.

Josephine had graciously freed up her afternoon after Liara had explained precisely how much of the bottle of Dragon's Piss she'd emptied last night – and with whom. Josie-oh-so-prim had covered her know-it-all smirk with her hand and giggled through all of Liara's protestations that nothing had happened with Bull. Josephine was a dear friend and a superb diplomat, but she lived for juicy secrets and had pressed relentlessly for details -which she refused to give - until Liara finally threw up her hands in exasperation, ordered a bath, and retreated to her room, grumbling the whole way up the stairs.

Of course, there hadn't been much on her schedule to begin with. Josephine was usually able to fill in for her appointments with the excuse that the Inquisitor was currently on the field or otherwise indisposed. And with Liara being in the funk that she'd been in of late, it had been in pretty much everyone's best interests that any of her appointments that required tact and thoughtful presentation be handled by someone else.

Liara was disturbed from her thoughtful contemplation of how to spend her day by a scuffling sound from the stairway. Reflexively, she clutched the towel to herself and crouched behind the tub. She was certain she'd locked the door after the housekeepers had filled the tub, but it was possible she might have been a bit distracted at the time. Still, she didn't hear anyone knock.

"Hello?" she called, hoping she was just hearing things. Dread sank into her stomach like a rock when a familiar mischievous giggle echoed up from the stairway.

"Sara…" she groaned. She wrapped the towel tightly around herself and began tiptoeing cautiously towards the entrance. "What in Ghilan'nain's great garden are you up to now?" She asked the silence.

But there was no reply. She rounded the top of the stairs but saw no one below. She turned slowly around the room, closing the balcony doors and looking for anything that might be out of place. Sara might not mean her any ill currently, but even her friendly pranks were still enough to be frightened by. She was about close the final balcony door when the flapping of a banner on the battlements below caught her eye. Only, to her horror, it was not the proud banner of her Dalish heritage that she had selected to adorn her keep, but the flapping of what appeared to be her small clothes - hung for all to see.

Aghast, she rushed frantically to her dresser, and jerked the top drawer open to find it empty of all but a folded piece of paper addressed to "Her Ladybits - who has no covering for her ladybits. Haha!" Rage blurred her vision as she unfolded the paper. How had Sera even gotten her underthings on the banner?! She grumbled as she began reading what she was sure to be a bunch of headache-inducing nonsense detailing how to get her undergarments back.

 ** _This one is brilliant, right?_**

 ** _You'll think it's funny later. Haha, ladybits._**

 ** _Plus it's a gift, yeah? Your old ladyclothes were all dalish – ick – except for the weird Orlesian panties (they're gone–super creepy)._**

 ** _Got you new ones!_**

 ** _Back in a bit!_**

The note was punctuated with terrifying sketches of her smallclothes in various places: her long Dalish underwear hanging from the banners, her corset atop what she assumed was supposed to be a horse, and –of course- her Orlesian silks sailing into a fireplace.

She scowled at the note as she crumpled it up and tossed it at the desk. She rummaged through her drawers, hoping beyond hope that somewhere there was something soft to wear under her clothes so she could march down to the pub, beat the sense out of Sera and reclaim what was left of her garments.

Naturally, the only time Sera was ever thorough about anything was when she was playing a joke on someone; there was not a stitch of clothing to be found. When she heard the door open, she whipped around with murder in her heart.

"I said I'd bring you new ones, ok I'm going now bye!"

"Sera, you're dead, you hear me?! Naked or no, I will thrash you!" With her towel wrapped tightly around her, she marched down the stairs. Once again, Sera was nowhere to be found, but a paper-wrapped parcel sat just outside the open door. She looked out over the railing as she approached the package, hoping to spot the sneaky little tramp making her escape.

"You know if you weren't so noisy you'd be almost as good a sneak as Cole, you little shite!" She cursed. She stooped to retrieve the package and pulled off yet another folded note from the top.

Then the door latched behind her.

She whirled around, dropping the package and note to the floor as she banged her fists into the mocking face of the door, which laughed with Sera's voice.

"Looks like I can be pretty sneaky when I wannabe, huh?" Came the taunt from behind the door.

Liara kicked the door. "You crazy, horrible little gutter-snipe! Let me in!"

"Don't get nasty!" Sera laughed. "I got you new undies, just like I wrote, yeah?"

"You're right, that's great, Sera." Poison dripped from her every word. "Now let me in now and I promise I won't beat you blue."

"You're a shite liar…"

"I'm a great liar you stupid little trollop!"

"Right. Well, you're lying now!"

"SERA LET ME IN RIGHT THIS FUCKING INSTANT!"

"Ok yeah no offense, right? But you seem kinda crazy. So no. Oh! Except this is too good!" She laughed that terribly disturbing Sera laugh while Liara screamed obscenities through the door in response. "I gotta go, ok? It's ok, though, I left you clothes! Ta! Or… whatever they say. Bye!"

"Wait! What?! Sera… where? HOW ARE YOU EVEN GETTING OUT!? SERA LET ME IN!" She shouldered into the door until her arm hurt but the heavy wooden door remained unphased. She slumped against the door and sat on the towel, which had fallen off during her distressed attempt to force the door.

After a time, she resigned herself to the fact that she was not going to be able to open the door without help. If she was really, impossibly lucky, Sera had left her a key or a set of lockpicks. If not, help could take a very long time to arrive. This section of the keep was sectioned off in such a way that nobody would even enter the staircase unless they meant to see her. And given that she had told Josie that she was nursing a hangover and that she had no appointments for the day, she doubted anyone would come to her rescue until housekeeping felt that the bath had been sitting too long and came to get it – which could be well into the evening for all she knew.

She turned her attention back to the package Sera had left for her. The folded note glared up at her expectantly, daring her to play whatever twisted little game Sera had conceived. This note was addressed to "GOTCHA! Haha!" and Liara had to press her fingers into her temple to keep calm as she opened the note.

 ** _Hey frumpy face, heard you finally stopped moping about so I thought we could play._**

 ** _It's fun innit?_**

 ** _Anyway, I'm sure you'll be wanting into your room. I thought about leaving you some tools but then, well - this!_**

 ** _Just get a set from Harrit. Grumpy geezer could probably use a sight. He spends too much time in the dark. Damp. S'not right. Ever seen him anywhere else? Bet he pisses right off the edge._**

 ** _You'll laugh about this later._**

Below all this was a rather disturbing, if crude, drawing of a stickman with one too many limbs standing by a waterfall and smiling at a cowering, large-breasted dwarf. Poor Harrit. A small note was scribbled under the signature.

 ** _P.S. – Hey, I left you something to wear._**

Liara had the presence of mind to be actually impressed that Sera had managed to use a post script properly, as she tended to put her random little notes wherever she liked, regardless of their position relative to the signature.

All that was left, then, was to see what Sera had given her to work with. She tossed the wrapping aside, praying Sera had left something a little more substantial than merely a pair of underclothes.

She nearly cried when she saw the beautiful, supple black leather peeking out from the top of the pile of clothes. She had feared the worst, but at least she would have pants. And nice ones, too, by the looks of it. In fact, they looked almost too nice to have come from Sera at all. She lifted them gently, planning to set them aside until she'd donned her underwear, only to find that there was nothing under those pants.

Nothing.

Not a scrap.

Liara blinked down at the bottom of the package in utter confusion. Had Sera merely forgotten to pack a shirt? Were there more packages further down the stairs? She looked over the ledge but didn't immediately see anything. Bewildered, she inspected the pants closer – only to discover that they weren't pants at all.

What she held in her hands was a single tube of soft, dark hide, stitched at the sides with one large opening at one end and four smaller openings at the other. She stared at the garment for an absurdly long time before realization dawned on her that what she was holding was actually a dress.

She held the dress out with both hands and inspected it with a mixture of fear and disgust. Liara did not do well in dresses. Of any kind. The closest she'd come to wearing a dress since she was a girl was the uniform she'd worn to the Winter Palace – and she got to wear pants under that! Gods, where were the panties?! She groaned. Dresses were by far the worst, most repressive articles of clothing ever conceived by man. Everything was more difficult in a dress. Crouching, sneaking, jumping, threatening and intimidating, running… and you could forget climbing! Especially without underwear!

And what was this extra hole for? Two for arms, check. One at the top for the head, check. And one in the front for… oh no. No.

She tried putting the dress on with the hole in the back but the neck of the dress nearly choked her when she got it on.

With much trepidation and frustration, she tugged the nightmarish garment over her head. She didn't even have to see herself in it to know she hated the thing. It was too short; she found it creeping up her thigh after even the slightest of movements. Without underwear, it was downright obscene. Where has Sera found this thing? It looked like it something straight out of an Orlesian cautionary tale about Tevinter's perverse sexuality. Come to think of it, she might have seen this exact dress on the cover of one of those trashy books in the library. What was the title again? 'Bound in Darkness'? 'The Magister's Wife'? Varric might know. Though, she hoped she'd never have to ask him – or even to have to explain why she would have to ask.

With an exasperated sigh, she trained her gaze towards the ceiling, silently praying that she was still in some crazy kinky dream and this wasn't really happening to her. Then she charged the door again. When it refused, yet again, to grant her entry she punched it and let out a tortured sob. She would have to get those lock picks from somewhere.

The Undercroft was the closest, safest bet for a place to look for a set, buy one, or have one forged. With luck, there might even be some spare armor or clothes she could wear so she wouldn't have to sneak back up to her room. At the very least, she could probably get Dagna to find her something to wear or to fetch her a set of picks. She just had to find a way across the hall. She figured the safest bet might be to sneak behind the throne, if she could. Hopefully nobody would spot her.

This was officially the least funny prank anyone had pulled, ever.

The dress had hitched itself back up her thigh during her assault on the door and she bitterly pulled it back down as far as it could possibly go without her breasts popping out of the boob window.

It was a short trip, she told herself – mentally preparing for the task at hand. She could do this. It was just like sneaking back to camp after that romp in the woods with Valen when her clothes had mysteriously vanished in the night.

Except that it was daylight and she was sneaking around a lit throne room/banquet hall that was probably full of people.

And she was the Inquisitor.

Her mind was frantic with planning as she descended the stairs. She might be able to sprint across the hall – hopefully she could pick up enough speed that nobody would identify her – though it was unlikely, given that she had just exited the Inquisitor's room.

Maybe someone would think she was just a diversionary serving girl. Certainly the Inquisitor was allowed to have late night callers? No. No that wouldn't work.

Perhaps she could just walk out into the hall, confidently, and execute anyone who dared to gawk at her. Hm, that could work.

Sneaking would absolutely test the limits of her stealth. Ultimate rogue challenge: get a nearly naked person of interest across a crowded hall with no tools or tricks without being noticed.

Oh, gods, what would people say if they saw her? The execution idea was beginning to sound more and more appealing with each passing step.

One thing at a time, though. First, she had to see what she was dealing with in the hall.

She cracked the door ever so slightly and peeked through. The hall was not crowded, but not quite as much as it could have been. A few chantry sisters were gathered around in a group, probably on their way to the garden, she presumed. Some stragglers from breakfast were still seated at tables and voicing their disapproval a little too loudly about certain cultural elements of the décor that weren't very fashionable in Orlais. Near the rear of the hall, a group of dwarves were shaking their heads at an exasperated requisition officer. Of course, there were also a number of Inquisition soldiers passing about as they liked, with no apparent organization.

Out of everyone in the hall, however, the sisters worried her the most. The chantry had never been particularly fond of a non-Andrastian, Dalish elf being paraded around as the "chosen one", and Liara imagined they would have a field day if they saw her sneaking around the castle dressed like a Tevinter prostitute. Fortunately nobody seemed to have noticed her opening the door and only a handful of people were even facing the back of the hall.

An unconscious shiver crawled up her spine as she sensed a pair of eyes looking directly her way. She searched the hall for the source, her gaze, at last, resting on a familiar dwarf at the far end of the hall. Varric was stooped over a table, pretending to be pre-occupied with his writing, but his attention was firmly fixed on the door.

Perhaps this could work, though. If she could get Varric's attention she might have a chance to get out of this situation with only a controlled amount of embarrassment. She cracked the door a little more but made sure that her body was still positioned safely out of sight behind the door. She stuck a hand out and began gesturing at him to come over and pointing at the Undercroft. She did her best to mime what she needed while mouthing "come here", "lockpicks", "locked out", "Harrit", and "help!".

Slowly, Varric stood up and looked around the room in the most suspicious way a person could possibly survey a place.

"No! No! Don't draw attention!" she screamed silently at him. To her horror, he continued to walk toward her while looking around the room. A few people had already begun to watch him out of curiosity. He stopped just a few steps into the hall and cleared his throat loudly. Gradually, even more people turned towards him and Liara watched, eyes fixed in terror, as he began to address the hall.

"Excuse me! Hi. Yes. Everybody look at the dwarf please!" He said, spreading his hands out in grandiosity. "Hopefully you all know me by now. Varric Tethras, adventurer, merchant prince, esteemed story-teller." At this point he did a little bow and twirled his hands about in the air for emphasis. "Personal friend of Ser Alexander Hawke and esteemed author of the now famous – perhaps infamous – Tale of the Champion…"

It took Liara a moment to realize that Varric was actually waving his arms about to signal her to go, rather than simply waving for dramatic effect.

She took another cautionary look around the hall, but it appeared that Varric had everyone's attention and nobody was even looking her way. Just to be sure, she cracked the door a little more. Seeing nobody paying her any mind, she began edging herself out of the doorway. She immediately plastered herself to the wall before making a quick dash behind the throne. From behind the throne, she snuck a peek to see if anyone had noticed her mad dash. Varric was deeply entrenched in his breaking announcement of his ongoing work, 'Tale of the Inquisitor' – but Liara noticed a knowing little half-smirk on his face that she didn't trust. Regardless, she owed the dwarf immensely.

As Varric regaled the crowd with the details of his work – which Liara noticed was full of the usual embellishments – she took the time to creep towards the door to the Undercroft and slip through. Once the door was safely shut behind her she sighed with relief and clutched at her heart, which was beating so loudly by now that she feared everyone in the hall would have noticed.

For the time being, she was safe. The first of her trials was over. Now what remained was to face up to Harrit and either beg or threaten him for help.

The blacksmith's back was turned to her as he bent over the weapons modification station. Dagna was nowhere to be seen, but Liara supposed she should be grateful that only one person had to see her this way. She adjusted her dress for what she hoped was a final time before she found some better clothes and began to walk towards the smith.

"Oh thank the gods you're here," she breathed. As the adrenaline pumping through her veins began to subside, the cold damp Undercroft steps caused a shiver to ripple goosebumps up the length of her body. She crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to hide her hardening nipples. "I need your help with something," she said, panting, "I hate to ask you like this, but, please, I'm desperate."

"Heh?" game the gruff reply from the work station. Harrit raised his head and turned to reveal an uncharacteristically full beard that looked strangely like…

"Shit."

Blackwall took one look at her and his jaw hit the floor. He froze, momentary stupefied. No part of him moved but his eyes, which looked over the mortified, shivering, and scantily-clad Inquisitor before him once, then once again, and once more until he finally recovered from his shock. The warden straitened and smoothed out his tunic before clearing his throat an proceeding to make an arse out of himself.

"Well," he began, smugly, "you don't play games, do you? I didn't think you'd move on _this_ quickly. I'll admit, I'm surprised, Inquisitor. Somehow I never thought of Solas as being the most… well, as being… ahm."

"Oh shut up," she spat, hoping to cut the vile man off before he finished voicing whatever disturbing misinterpretation of the situation he'd imagined. "Sera locked me out of my room."

Blackwall remained hopeful. "That's what you wear up there?" He asked, taking one overly bold step towards her. "Maker. I suddenly regret not finding excuses to visit you more often."

"No!" She threw up her hands defensively between them. "And this is _not_ mine!" She gestured wildly in her exasperation, which caused the dress to creep up to an almost disastrous dangerous height. Blackwall's eyes bulged as he tried to look at both the scandalous hem of her dress and her breasts all at once. She pulled the dress back down and crossed her arms defensively across her chest while fixing him with her best murderous gaze.

"So, ah," he coughed , twisting his mustache, "I guess you didn't come here to…"

"I need a set of lockpicks, you miserable sod! And some clothes. You will help me look and will say nothing foul, or I will exile you to the deep roads for high treason."

"Right," came the resigned sigh. "I think I saw some pauldrons by the forge."

"Wonderful." If she could materialize sarcasm, she would've made a dagger and stabbed him with it. "Maybe I can wear them as shoes so I don't freeze to death." She cursed. "You know what? Actually, just leave. Go find me a set of lockpicks, see if Leliana has the key to my room or something. And if you see Sera, tell her she's dead."

He was already turning to leave with a smartass remark when a thought occurred to her.

"Wait," she called, "I need your shirt."

"Oh'" he teased, already unstrapping his armor. "I suppose you'll just 'give it back to me after you wash it, then?" She wanted to punch all of his smiling teeth straight out of his stupid, scruffy face.

"You're on very thin ice. Hand it over. Inquisition's orders." She held out her arm impatiently, doing her best to cover herself with the other. Blackwall pulled off his shirt and held it in his hands just a few feet from her. Their breath froze in the air between them as he stood bare-chested in the cold just within arm's reach. The sound of the falls behind them made the awkwardness of the encounter seem strangely intimate, even as she glared daggers into his head.

Blackwall sighed and took one more long, forlorn look at her before handing over his shirt.

"Woah," Varric called from the doorway, "am I …interrupting something?"

"Fuck's sake!" Liara cursed, ripping the shirt from Blackwall's grasp and quickly throwing it on over her dress. The warm fabric fell over her like a curtain, covering her insecurity, despite the fact that it didn't hang down much further than the dress itself. Still, the sleeves were long and it hid her figure enough that she didn't feel like she had to keep covering her breasts.

"Uhm, I was just helping the Inquisitor find her…"

"YES THANK YOU BLACKWALL YOU MAY LEAVE NOW!" she shouted, completely appalled.

"She needs her lock picked," he winked, shuffling out the door past Varric with his armor in hand. Varric simply laughed and cocked an eyebrow as he descended the stairs. Halfway down the steps, he tossed a bundle of cloth to her, which she caught deftly.

It was pants! Soft, wonderful, velvety pants!

"Varric, oh, gods, maker, whoever! Thank you! Turn around." She had already begun putting them on, too overjoyed to check if Varric was even watching. "Oh, bless you, you wonderful little man. You're promoted!"

The pants were clearly too large for her but she rolled the waist until they could at least stay on her hips. When she looked up, Varric was turned away with a hand over his eyes. He was trying not to laugh, but she didn't care – he was a hero. She gave him the all clear and he chuckled at the sight of her. Liara imagined she looked rather silly. The collar of the dress peeked out under the neckline of the too-large cotton shirt which hung mid-thigh above luxurious, ill-fitting pants that dragged on the ground.

"Hey," he laughed, "I like the pants! They look much better on you than the guy I got them from. I actually traded the guy right there in the hall. I had to promise him a signed copy of 'Tale of the Inquisitor' when I finish it, though, but he was happy. Boy is he going to be upset when we both die before that's finished."

She laughed. It bubbled out of her uncontrollably and soon they were both roaring with laughter. Liara was in tears by the end of it and clutching her belly in pain.

"So," he said, wiping away tears of his own, "do I want to know why I had to distract a hall full of people so you could steal a shirt from the smelliest human in all of Skyhold?"

"Sera," she gasped, between breaths, "locked me out of my room after my bath. I'm going to kill her."

"Ooooh, so _that's_ what Blackwall meant," he mocked.

"I'm probably going to kill him too."

"You know, that's probably for the best. If he saw any more of you than I just did, I think the chevalier's code dictates that he go… fight a bear. Or something. I don't actually know much about chevaliers, to be honest. By the way, is that the dress from the cover of 'The 'Vint Vixen?'"

"I don't even know where she got this thing, Varric," she sighed, shaking her head, "and I'm not about to let you get a better look at it to figure it out."

"Maker forbid, I would never!"

"So," he said, "now that you can walk across the hall without needing a diversion, let's go see about the door to your room."

Several minutes later, after they'd discussed all the creative ways for Liara to get back at Sera, the door was open and Liara thanked Varric profusely. After confirming that Sera had indeed left her with a new stash of underclothes, she parted ways with the dwarf, but not before issuing him a stern warning:

"You had better not write this into your 'Tale of the Inquisitor'."

He made no promises.


	6. Chapter 6

_So in keeping with the tradition of true filler, the events of the last chapter will not be discussed by the characters and are not relevant to the plot in any way. And thank goodness, because it would be too much work explaining why Liara hadn't ACTUALLY killed Sera as I'm pretty sure my Inquisitor would've had her quietly beheaded on a quiet mountainside. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me. Like I said, it was just to help me get back into the swing of things. Also in reading my previous stuff I've discovered that I'm actually not that good at storytelling or character development and those things need a lot of work so I welcome feedback and suggestions. Once again, I can't thank you enough for your follows and comments. Thanks!_

* * *

The War Table made her head hurt.

It always did.

It wasn't the table itself, per se, but the cluster of markers symbolizing the never-ending pile of responsibility that she was primarily the sole decision-maker on.

She never asked to be the Inquisitor. Things used to be so much simpler. She was a thief, a dancer, and a performer; she was gifted with all of the natural talents to make her an excellent spy, an adept emissary, and a proficient assassin, when required. But one thing she was not was a planner. Though quick-witted and well-spoken, she had no military intelligence and lacked the discipline and proper mind to organize an army or a network of spies. Liara supposed that was the point of having advisers, but she often wished that they could make so many of the minor decisions for her.

"What's this?" Liara pointed to a small flag in The Emerald Graves, resisting the urge to knock it over, bitterly.

Like most Dalish, she had a bit of a sore spot when it came to the Graves. The whole area was saturated with overwhelming sadness and a feeling of inhospitable haunting. Wherever she walked there, she saw blood under each blade of grass. The creaking of the great trees were the screams of her people. And humans built their great villas and hunting lodges in a land they and their Maker had stolen with death. She wanted as few troops in that area as possible – it just didn't feel right to occupy the Graves even to help the refugees who were desperate enough to stay there.

Leliana pulled up the corresponding report and scanned it quickly, resting one perfectly manicured finger on her pursed lips. It would have been hard to imagine such lovey, delicate fingers dripping with blood had she not seen her coldly cut Sister Natalie's throat in Valence not so long ago. Since the Divine's death, Leliana had shut herself in with her reports and her ravens and ventured out so rarely that it was practically several lifetimes ago when she had been a bard and had fought beside the fabled Hero of Fereldan.

"It seems Lord Sedda Aluvaria is unhappy with the Inquisition's seizure and usage of his villa," said the spymaster, "He cites a personal friendship with Emperor Gaspard's great niece and claims he's very concerned that his property is being 'unlawfully used and pilfered without fair compensation'."

Liara raised a quizzical eyebrow at the spymaster. The whole of Thedas needed saving. An ancient darkspawn god was threatening to tear apart the very sky and some petty, rich asshole was complaining that the Inquisition had made use of one of his abandoned homes to help the refugees of a civil war that she had personally put a stop to. Surely, such a matter did not require her attention.

"This is ridiculous," said an equally annoyed Cullen. Liara often found that Cullen's annoyance with The Game and the intricacies of its politics was the only comfort to be found at the war table - unless she had had the presence of mind to fill her cup with wine first. Many times at the war table, Liara would look over to see the same bored or exasperated expression mirrored on Cullen's face as the one she wore. Sometimes they even made faces at each other across the table when Josephine and Leliana weren't looking. They were both at a constant loss for how soldiers could be used so routinely for non-military purposes.

"Wars are fought with words and coin as much as they are by soldiers," Josie would say, ever the diligent diplomat, "and we need the right people on our side. What's a little march for a few soldiers?" But that rationale never made a difference to Liara. Ultimately, she felt her efforts were wasted in getting involved in little shem problems with each other that ultimately only hurt her people, when there was a greater threat out there that she had to keep reminding people about.

"I agree with Cullen," Liara cut in, with a frown. "It's already been taken. Can't we just ignore him?"

"I am told that Lord Aluvaria's son was a loyal supporter of Celene during the war. Several shipments of ore from quarries owned by the Aluvaria estate found their way into the former empresses' holdings." Josephine tapped her quill on parchment, conspiratorially.

"Blackmail, then?" Leliana did love her conspiracies.

"Do it." Liara consented, picking the small marker off of the map. "We're not paying that crook. If he presses, tell him he owes the crown back-pay."

"His report claims that his estate houses several 'priceless' pieces of art. It would be a shame if any of them were to be taken by desperate refugees." Leliana's crystal eyes danced under the shadows of her hood as she flashed a wicked grin.

Liara crushed her devious ambition.

"No. We're already blackmailing him into letting us use his property; The Inquisition will have no part in the theft or fencing of his artifacts as well. Do what you can to keep his estate intact. Is this matter decided, then?"

Leliana's smile faded behind a mask of indifference but her head remained high and proud as she murmured her affirmative and began plotting the appropriate arrangements. Liara tossed the mission marker aside and worked her way around the map, picking up and assigning objectives to her advisors in turn.

A great deal of the missions that were summarized for her could be solved with letters or a carefully placed rumor and were flagged as non-emergent until the military matters were prioritized and dealt with. After nearly and hour in the war room, Liara had only a very short list of accomplishments to show for her time: two bridges in the works, an excavation of Din'an Hanin in the Graves had been ordered, support for Kirkwall was underway, and her diplomats and spies were working on securing rare crafting ingredients from the Orlesian underground.

The war table always made her head hurt.

But even the headache was a welcome distraction from the nagging thoughts that kept creeping into her mind.

As she busied herself throughout the morning she'd been unable to stop thinking about The Iron Bull. Everything about yesterday's interactions was on permanent replay whenever she stopped moving. Of course it was a ridiculous notion that she and Bull could even have anything between them. She was paying him and he was her bodyguard. He was a Ben Hasrath spy and she was leader of the Inquisition. They used each other in a beneficial give-and-take arrangement but there was no possibility of anything romantic between them. The kiss should never have happened.

And yet it had. If she remembered it, drunk as she was, then Bull surely did as well. And, gods, did she remember it. The feeling of his chest under her palm, pulsing like fire in a flask and sparking an even greater need in her than she could recall feeling before. His darkened eye above her pulled her in dangerously like the cataclysmic Void itself, tempting her to leap straight in. And when he'd finally yielded to her…

She got chills at the memory. His mouth had tasted of the same sweet and salty liquor that had made her brave enough to kiss him in the first place. The gentleness of his firm lips moving only ever so slightly against her needy open-mouthed kisses tortured her and the haunting way he'd refused to entangle his tongue with hers - allowing her deviant exploration but never feeding into it - made her groan in agony.

Liara shook the memory from her mind as she walked towards the Undercroft to tend to the next order of business for today. If yesterday's sparring with the Iron Bull had taught her anything, it was that she needed to upgrade her arms and arsenal before she confronted Corypheus again.

She thought the walk from the War Room to the armory would be short enough that she wouldn't have time to recall the events prior to her intoxicated mistakes, but Iron Bull followed her there in the back of her mind. She replayed the fight again, seeing the fury in Bull's face as he charged. But before that, her mind lingered on the curious look he'd given her before he approached and the way he'd chased after her when the match was over.

Pointless. Thinking about him was pointless. She had too much to do to entertain foolish notions of… whatever… for the Charger's captain.

Thus she began planning her upgrades. For starters, she needed a better set of daggers. She was also craving a new set of leathers – preferably one with magical protection and reinforced armor were probably a higher priority if she was to fight Corypheus and his dragon. She made herself comfortable for what she was sure was going to be a long argument with Harritt about how what she was asking was impossible. The blacksmith was a stubborn, stoic man who was undoubtedly over-worked, but no matter how much he complained, he always filled her orders, regardless. After several minutes of describing the set of dual curved dragonbone blades that she wanted, Harritt was shaking his head and throwing spurious glares at Dagna, who was helpfully pitching ideas for enchantments for the declaredly-impossible blades. The two of them launched into a heated debate about the possibility of magically adhering metal and bone and continued long after she'd decided the matter settled and moved on to the alchemy table.

She scrolled through the recipe book at least twice before she realized she hadn't absorbed any of it. Her gaze was pulled to a small scrap of paper with thick, neat script just to the right of her recipes. It was a recipe for what looked like a mild restorative tonic but it had been modified with a touch of Highland Blue leaf.

Odd pangs of guilt, joy, pride, and sadness flushed through her all at once in conflicting waves. She'd never considered using tea leaves in her potions, and yet before her sat a recipe that, in all likelihood, was the hangover cure she'd taken that very morning. Highland Blue was undoubtedly her favorite variety of tea – its soothing floral flavor faded into a gentle tingle that spread through the whole body and seemed to leave her feeling as though her skin were practically buzzing with energy. She'd once told Solas that full strength Highland Blue made her feel like a mage herself, ready to unleash lightening from her fingertips. She'd never seen this recipe before, though. Did Bull create this mixture himself, and did he know her affinity for the Blue when he'd made the potion?

And just like that, he completely occupied her thoughts again. One thing that was bothering her was his refusal. He'd carried her up the stairs, he sat with her on the balcony, and he'd taken her back inside to her room but he hadn't tried anything further with her. It would've been a mistake, obviously. She couldn't welcome any advances from him but their absence bothered her. Was he not interested?

No. No, this didn't matter. She didn't care if Bull thought of her that way. It was impossible. It didn't matter. She looked at her recipes again. It still took one complete reading to focus on what she was doing but eventually she began to compose a list of materials that she needed for her spirit resistance tonics and rock armor potions. She could get the troops to keep an eye out for a few of the common plants, but she knew she was going to have to gather the rare herbs herself.

For the life of her she couldn't figure out why the troops were so inept at identifying plants. Her time with the Dalish had given her a certain edge in locating and identifying plants and their uses, certainly, but she'd recruited people from all over Thedas who should've been able to distinguish between the endlessly useful elfroot and the completely useless arrowhead weeds that came back to her in piles whenever she sent them out for herbs. Sylaise help her if she wanted Prophet's Laurel or something even slightly rare or uncommon. She'd once had a sample of Black Lotus that came back to her that was just a bundle of stems and leaves that had been mashed up in a rucksack so much that it was an absolutely worthless sample. But it seemed that no matter what kind of basic botany training for her troops that she spent effort on produced only the most minimal results.

She snatched up her list and rendezvoused with Dagna and Harritt, who appeared to be wrapping up their bickering. The pair had decided that they could cooperate on the blades, but Dagna requested some really bizarre and expensive components for runes in addition to the bone and metal samples she'd need to craft the daggers themselves. She had hoped to remain in Skyhold until they had further intelligence about Corypheus' movements – or until Solas returned - but Josie would throw a fit if she purchased even half the things on her list. With all the leather, bone, and herbs, and enchanting materials on her list, there were too many things that she needed to put off going out.

Liara busied herself through most of the morning, floating from task to task and person to person as had become a normal part of every day with the Inquisition prior to Solas leaving. With Corypheus still out there to fight and no news on Solas' whereabouts, she had to be back to business as usual to keep the Inquisition running. The dazed frenzy was consuming and, presently, it was a welcome distraction from facing the emotional turmoil settling into her belly and threatening to bubble up at the slightest break in activity. It wasn't until mid-afternoon as she left the mage tower and walked across the battlements that she realized she no longer had anything on her immediate agenda. It was still early enough in the day that she could arrange for a journey down the mountains to gather some of the materials she needed, but she hadn't thought of how to incorporate dragon-hunting into her plans yet and she didn't want to venture out too far in the event that word on Corypheus turned up.

For a moment, there was stillness. With nothing demanding her attention, the energy that had been carrying her through the morning ebbed. With a sigh, she gazed over the courtyard and observed her work. Her army had recovered from the battle in the Arbor Wilds and was continuing to improve every day. Her keep had all the resources that a united Fereldon and Orlais could give her.

Suddenly a familiar prickling of her skin alerted her to the feeling of being watched from below and she searched for the source. From the corner of the practice area, she saw the culprit. The entranced gaze he affixed upon her caused the cold mountain air to catch in her throat and sent shivers down her bare arms. His penetrating glare exposed her and she folded her goose-prickled arms over her chest as she did her best to meet the steel-hard stare of The Iron Bull.

What could Liara say to describe the sight of this man fresh from his training? His skin radiated as he stood shirtless in the courtyard, as he so often did. He was a giant. He was an inspiration. He was a monster. He shone with sweat, his muscles were swollen from use, he heaved with every breath, and in his face showed the predatory stare of a trained killer.

How could she describe what she felt from seeing this man gaze at her so? Those enormous hands, wrapped so tightly around the haft of a greataxe were not made to hold tiny, fragile things like her. That immovable expanse of muscle that was his chest could not be moved by even the full fury of her fists. She could break against him before he would budge. If he held her tight, she could never hope to escape. It was a terrible wish to have the attention of such a man and one she should not wish to consider.

And yet as she stared back at him, warmth flooded through her and flashes of her dream splintered into reality. How would it feel to be in those arms? To feel those big hands on her bare sides and thighs? She swallowed and tried to blink from her trance enough to break the stare. The harshness in Bull's face had settled into the more familiar, congenial expression she'd come to expect and he waved up at her. Beside him, Krem elbowed the big Qunari and threw up one arm casually at her before turning back to the tavern with a wink she didn't quite trust. She released one of her arms and waved once in response to the pair then watched in terror as Bull began walking towards the stairs beneath her.

Shit! She needed to pull herself together quickly and figure out what to say to Bull. "Sorry I kissed you last night" came to mind. No good. Maybe an icebreaker? "Nice… muscles"? She stood frozen, completely transfixed as he continued his advance. Oh, he couldn't get closer to her right now. With every step, her tortured mind warred between running and replaying fantasies of him cornering her against the mage tower and running those titanic hands roughly up her back.

"Inquisitor," came an unfamiliar voice to her right. "Begging your pardon, but mistress Leliana thought you'd want this … right away." The soldier stuttered. "Is this a bad time?" In his hands, the Inquisition soldier held a stiff scroll out tentatively to her with a look of concern.

"Ah," she stammered, eloquently. She must've looked something truly terrible to have put this messenger off in such a way. Had Bull noticed? She glanced back at the stairs, but Bull was just standing still watching with cautious curiosity. She took the scroll from the scout, swallowed, and read it, eyes widening with every line. "She's sure? Din'an Hanin? Why would the red templars be interested in the tomb of the Emerald Knights? Gods. Tavin must be warned! If his men are still there when the red templars arrive…" She thrust the scroll back into the scout's hands. "We must leave. Now. Prepare a company."

"Inquisitor!" He saluted. "Who shall accompany you to the front?"

She thought about it. Ordinarily she would've chosen Solas for a mission involving elven history but her usual company was currently disturbed. She'd rather not take Dorian on a mission involving Tevinter resistance, which left Vivian. She groaned.

"Inform Cassandra and Vivian to meet me at the gates as swiftly as possible." She needed a fourth for ranged. If Vivian was coming there was no way she could take Sera. Varric was the natural choice.

Invisible strings turned her head back towards The Iron Bull, still posed mid-stride on his way up to her. For reasons she couldn't understand and motives that bypassed all attempt at strategy, her voice leapt forth of its own accord and gave the order. Bull gave her a thumbs-up and departed to gather what he would need for the trip to the Graves.


	7. Chapter 7

Liara Lavellan The Iron Bull, Vivian, Cassandra, and a small company of additional soldiers navigated their horses down the mountainside trail as quickly as was safe while discussing the situation in the Graves with the latest Inquisition information. Liara wanted to push the group faster as she began to worry about all that could go wrong in the time it took them to make their way to Din'an Hanin. What if the red templars had beaten her soldiers to the tombs? Would Tavin be warned in time to escape? Everyone was quick to assure her that they would be in time to stop the enemy. Leliana was usually three moves ahead of the enemy and all of her information was extra ordinarily timely but it did little to make Liara feel less tense.

Inquisition troops had been battling red templar forces in the Graves since their first occupation and they continued with renewed force after The Freemen had been dealt with. She shuddered to think of their corrupt hands falling on whatever treasure they sought within the tomb of the Emerald Knights.

But it wasn't just worrying for her people that kept her on edge during the journey. She'd asked Bull to come with her, despite her better judgment, for reasons she couldn't explain without admitting to herself that she merely wanted him there. She did want to discuss the events of last night with him and to clear the air, but gods knew it wasn't anything so important that it warranted putting the party in danger. Cassandra had already vocalized that bringing the bruiser was perhaps not the most prudent choice for the balance of the party and she was oh so sure that Varric would've been happy to accompany us and provide some ranged options. Thankfully Bull had made his own argument for being there. They didn't know what to expect in these ruins; it was possible that if they had to go dungeon delving that the corridors might be too tight for ranged fire.

There was little banter along the way that required her attention so Liara was content to sit in her saddle listening to the bunch talk amongst themselves while she scripted how the inevitable conversation with The Iron Bull should go.

Of course she couldn't explain very much of what had happened. She had a momentary weakness while she was drunk and had kissed her very handsome employee/friend/fellow party member. Could happen to anyone, yeah?

She gritted her teeth. She'd always been too impulsive. The first kiss with Solas in the fade had been much the same. She barely knew him, but he was talking and she'd felt this strange lightness of being – which she now realized could be attributed to the dream – and felt compelled to cover his mouth with hers. She didn't do spirit things too well either, preferring to merely act physically rather than learn the subtleties of the mind and all its tricky wonders. Solas and his strange dream magic had helped her bridge a gap and learn new things about herself that she'd never considered. It had tamed some of her wilder impulses and some of their accompanying physical temptations and urges. When she and Solas made love it was as much about healing her spirit as it was a fulfillment of sexual desire. It was, in every sense of the word, lovemaking – sweet and soft and more satisfying than her sporadic trysts in the woods with Valen. So filled with gentle completion was she with Solas that she hadn't had the presence of mind to notice the attractiveness of other men or the lust they could inspire.

And that was precisely what she dreaded explaining to Bull. Her actions last night were purely the manifestation of her reverting to a life without Solas – where each pain she felt on the inside would be ignored and channeled into something physical that she could deal with. She couldn't admit to Bull that he was just the tool she had tried to use to alleviate the devastation that the loss of Solas had caused.

Especially because she was not entirely sure that was true. Of course, her pain played a big part in why she wanted to lose herself in those strong, hulking arms. And yes, her classical impulsivity was how she'd ended up drinking herself into those arms and into making the mistake of kissing him when she'd previously shown no interest in Bull that way. But she wasn't exactly just throwing herself into the arms of the first person who'd come along and was readily available. If she'd really wanted to hurt someone else to alleviate her pain, she would've seduced Josie the first night she came to comfort the grieving Liara after her return from the falls. Josephine had always had a soft spot for the Inquisitor and if Liara's spy work in Orslais had taught her anything about rich shems in fancy clothes, it was that they'd profess endlessly about true love and long, non-sexual courtships but behind closed doors what they really wanted was to be swept off their feet into an alley and fucked in a scandalously passionate affair. She had no doubt that if she'd said the right, miserable things and held Josie's hand on the couch by the fire that after a few remorseful drinks of wine, hot breathy kisses on her caramel-colored neck, and she begged her to stay that she could have the ambassador wrapped around her little finger by now. But it wasn't what she wanted. And it wouldn't have helped her recover from Solas. So instead she'd thanked her dear friend for her concern and sent her away.

Even Cullen, ruggedly handsome and as in-charge as he was, might've been an option for Liara. But she hadn't even thought of claiming her commander in such a way. Why, then, Bull? Bull who was so foreign and strange? Yes, he fought beside her and had been better company than she'd expected, but so had Varric and she'd never felt any attraction for the little man. Why Bull? And why, gods, WHY was it so hard to come up with an answer to that question?

She thought back to the look he'd given her in the courtyard. That violent stare. That primal dominance so unlike anything she'd ever known that she'd frozen. It was like staring into the gnashing maw of a dragon. Exhilarating, raw, physical power that was at once, something she fully understood and respected and something dangerous and dreadful. Was that it then? She was merely drawn to the danger of this horned beast of a man? She wasn't sure that would be any better of an explanation.

She didn't know what to expect when she looked back at Iron Bull or how she expected to feel. Perhaps, she hoped, by observing him, she could come up with answer for why she'd kissed him. Maybe, she prayed, she would see nothing at all that she liked and she could shake this dreaded attraction from herself. She combed over his features as thoroughly as she could from her vantage point without drawing too much attention.

He was a freak. Nobody ever should be attracted to someone that gigantic. He was fully a head and shoulders taller than her. If there were two of her pressed back to back, then would not compose the width of the man. His arms and legs were easily three of hers and his head looked absurdly tiny atop his bulging neck muscles. It was a wonder he was as nimble in combat as he was. He was nowhere near her match in speed, of course, but he didn't need to be fast if one hit could lay the enemy out flat.

He had shiny pink scars all over his torso, which was still shockingly bare even against the mountain snowdrifts. If he were faster and smaller, like she was, perhaps he wouldn't be such a mess of scars. She wanted to hate those scares. She wanted to find them ugly and repulsive. She argued that he was foolish for allowing so many injuries of such apparent severity to happen. One particularly long scar stood out to her. Placed just over the left side of his chest, the sharp pink line stood tall and puckered above one sinfully dark nipple. It had to have been a particularly bad injury to be as large as it was – and the rise of the scar meant that it hadn't even been healed magically. How long had he lay in recovery from such a wounding?

And then there was his eye, of course. She stared at that dark, silvery eyepatch with contempt. How could someone expect to be a decent fighter with no peripheral vision on one side? It was such an obvious weakness. She should've hated it. It should've disgusted her. She definitely should not imagine gently dragging her thumb over that patch while laying soft, velvety kisses on his jaw.

She groaned. This wasn't working. The man had faults, yes - faults that should've been a turnoff. Faults that _would've_ been a turnoff if he'd been anyone else. But he wasn't; he was The Iron fucking Bull and despite all her best intentions, she seemed unable to just will herself to stop wanting him.

He didn't even have to be Ben-Hassrath to notice her staring, but he was polite enough to finish his conversation and look the other way to let her enjoy it for the moment before dismissing himself from the group and riding up beside her. She had the good sense, at least, to not look too embarrassed that he had taken her glaring as an invitation to talk to her. Instead she gave a curt nod of acknowledgement before fixing her gaze directly upon the horizon. They were nearly through the roughest of mountain paths but they still had quite a journey ahead of them before they reached The Emerald Graves. Though she wanted to reach her destination as quickly as possible, it was likely they'd need to make camp in a few hours once they'd reached the base of the mountain before venturing south through to the Graves.

The secret to making long journeys with a small company, she'd learned, was to keep everyone as complacent as possible and not to bring party members who might take issue with one another and fill the remainder of the trip with a dangerously palpable silence – or worse. She had made the decision to bring The Iron Bull despite what had passed between them last night, and now she had to find a way to bear the weight of that decision and not say anything that might endanger the tranquility of their group.

She keenly felt his presence beside her. The side of her body tingled with a hyper-awareness of his every move. Though she kept her eyes calmly trained forward, her mind was a cacophony, focused solely on the movement of light and dark off to her right. This was chaos. The rush of battle flooded through her, breaking with the knowledge that there was no battle, and showering her with ripples of anxiety. Not knowing what to do with her body, she tensed, every muscle readied for some unforeseen fight. She meant to wait for him to speak first. She thought patience would temper the tide of excuses and justifications her mind effused anew every second since they parted the night before.

Instead, against her best intentions, she blurted out what she'd most dreaded saying – an admission of wrong. As the words escaped from her, falling in a loose pile like so much vomit as she blanched and flushed in alternation. By the end of it, when her mouth finally clamped itself shut on her rebellious tongue and silence sat heavy between them, she had no indication of how much time had passed or how much she'd prattled on or, indeed, how much she had confessed to.

She sat tight in her embarrassment as she waited for a reply. She'd rarely admitted fault to anyone but her Keeper and, on occasion, the Huntsmaster. There was no need. Truthfully, she wasn't sure what had compelled her to speak now. Surely the Inquisitor had no need of the approval of a man she was paying to guard her person.

And yet, she gave the order to save the Chargers at the expense of an alliance with the Qunari – yet another impulsive sentimentality – but one she had no intention of justifying or apologizing to anyone for.

It didn't take long for Bull to reply, in the lightest of tones, without a care in all of Thedas as to the severity of the confession she felt.

"Don't mention it, boss – I had a feeling. Ben Hasrath training, remember?"

Somehow, she felt worse.

She had nothing to say after that. She forced herself to be pleasant through the rest of their journey, smiling and laughing at all the right social prompts. Bull wasn't the only one with spy training, even if she chose not to utilize hers all that much these days.

She'd expected so much more of a reaction, some special insight he might have had to make her feel better or some sort of concession to her feelings. Instead, brief nothingness. Quick, hollow concessions without extrapolation. Without sensitivity or care. Her mistake was a symptom of the greater problem of being left wanting by a lover who took every sense of wholeness from her and left her greedy for any feelings deep enough to reach the shattered core of her former self. But all that seemed to penetrate were the darker emotions – the ones that Solas had steered her away from when he was with her – the ones that could pervert and twist the mind and heart.

At first she felt only void: that sudden all-consuming absence. And after that? The wounding of pride and the gruesome grip of sloth kept her too tired to resume her life and fill that void with goodness. What finally touched her again, after her long slumber, was the rush of the arena and that thrill of fighting at her limit so close to the threat of harm. And from that sensation, from that risk, she'd fallen into those most dangerous of feelings: rage, pride, lust. It was so plainly a cautionary tale that it might've come from chantry dogma itself. Still she wondered, would Solas have left if he'd known what it would do to her? That it would put her so close to all that he reviled? Could he love her still, if he could see how weak she'd become in his absence?

But he might never return.

In was her fear – that crushingly dark grip of despair – that made Bull's cavalier attitude towards her most intolerable and burned her so. Was she so undesirable, that he should express no thought of temptation? That her most beloved would leave her? With Solas, love was something she had gradually, carefully, and mysteriously cultivated, yet he'd abandoned her. Alone with only the barest sliver of mountain light the dark clouds could afford as the moon taunted her with its cruel silver smile. Now, in loneliness and weakness, she had practically thrown herself at Bull – best known around the keep for his loose ways and indiscretions with her servants only to be denied in the most unexpectedly gentle of refusals.

Over the horizon, the sky broke red. A storm was brewing.


	8. Chapter 8

_Hey gang, thanks for sticking with me through this. If you've been reading from the beginning you can probably tell my writing style for this story has changed a lot and I alternate between being up close and personal in Liara's head and the cold narrative voice. You also might've noticed that the last chapter only had one sentence of actual dialogue despite a whole conversation happening (!). Playing with different styles is fun but if it's wreaking havoc on my readers I'd like some feedback. I go a long time between some of these chapters so it's not all written in the same frame of mind. I've got a long way to go as a writer and I appreciate those of you who have enjoyed my work. Anyway, resume story! Spoilers this chapter has… no wait, I won't spoil it for you. READ ON!_

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It had all gone wrong.

By the time they arrived at Din'an Hanin it was already too late. Tavin and the other Dalish were already dead – just another handful of discarded Dalish corpses left to feed the already blood-soaked Graves.

Too late.

She didn't even have to look at the bodies to realize her failure. She didn't even have the time. She'd taken to the shadows the instant she'd dismounted from her hart, letting the familiar darkness guide her to her enemies and show her the path to vengeance. She let the familiar shadows take her and hide her from the thoughts she didn't want to face.

That more were dead. And that more would die.

She'd killed hundreds of Venatori fanatics. She'd mutilated the red templar leader and left nothing behind. And still they threatened her people. Their very existence mocked her efforts. The red taunted her, relentless and malicious, whispering their vile accusations.

 _You were never meant to have the anchor! You should have died! You will fail here! You will die with the rest of them!_

She fell upon the first group of unsuspecting Venatori and cut them down with ruthless brutality. They had fallen to blades they'd never even seen as she slipped between them, one kill to another. Behind her, Cassandra was shouting for her to wait, but already she was disappearing again and stalking the darkness for the source of the red whispers. The behemoth was nearly dead by the time the others caught up. She felt the shimmering of a barrier form around her as she slashed at the creature's legs and she was grateful for the small rejuvenation.

Only once the monster was dead did they consider their task in the ruins. The Venatori were clearly here for something, and whatever they were looking for, somehow these emerald seals were important.

The ruin was – well – only slightly worse than what you'd expect from an ancient ruin. And somehow it was more. Staircases and tunnels were collapsed, leaving the group of them to fight their way through a maze of carnage and culture. Trees and vines wove through history. Strange and beautiful murals decorated the walls – their meaning lost centuries ago, before the wars destroyed so much of her people. Perhaps Solas would have known something about their meaning, as he had in the temple of Mythal.

In fact, this was exactly the sort of mission she would've taken Solas on, she reflected. There was little of worth that the others could expand on or contribute at all other than their aid in combat. Not that she wanted to discount their help. By about the sixth group of Venatori she was beginning to slow down some. They'd killed three behemoths already and had seven emerald seals in total accounted for but they were running low on potions and enemy resistance didn't seem to lessen the further down into the tomb that they went.

"Perhaps we should catch our breath," suggested Cassandra during one of the rare moments of silence. They were all but Vivienne blood-splattered and tired. Cassandra was the only of the bunch who appeared visibly fatigued; her shoulders were fallen from the burden of carrying her shield and the weight of her armor. Vivian made it a point to never give the appearance that she was operating at anything other than peak efficiency, but Liara observed that in their last battle she'd only just barely dispelled the mages' fire traps in time for her to move in without getting caught.

Personally, Liara wanted to press on with haste. Whatever mystery the Venatori were hunting for, it was important enough to send a large force like this into Inquisition territory wanted with this place, but maybe stopping was a good idea after all. Vivian huffed, but Liara suspected she too would be grateful for a break. She glanced to The Iron Bull for the deciding vote.

She'd done her best to ignore her nagging impulses to look at him since they'd broken camp, deciding that the best course of action was simply to try to pretend there was nothing between them. Especially since he'd declared it so on their journey. But the thing was, even without his innate ability to fill a room with his presence, trying to ignore him was very difficult for her. With the brief exception of those moments when she was in the killing throes of battle, she had been as keenly aware of him as if he were immediately beside her.

She knew where he was even before she'd looked. She'd been tracking his every movement, somehow hearing his every breath and footstep. He was already smiling at her when she turned to see him. Like the rest of them, he was bloodied. His colossal shoulders heaved with each breath but he managed a laughing thumbs-up and an "all good here, boss". Somehow, despite their grim circumstances, his stubbornness made her smile. They were, after all, still good friends with a lifetime of battle to bond them.

"Take five, gang," she said, wiping her blades and tucking them into their sheaths. Cassandra tucked her back against the wall before breathing a sigh of relief and slumping against it, dropping her shield onto her lap. Vivian merely sniffed and smoothed her cheek, tutting at the flecks of dirt and blood on her robe. Bull strapped his greataxe to his back.

It bothered her that she noticed the pull of his chest muscles and the glorious bulge of his arm as he reached behind him to secure the weapon. Thankfully he seemed not to notice her staring before she was able to drop her gaze.

"I'm going to scout ahead. I don't want any of the 'Vints sneaking up on us while we rest." This far down in the tomb, they should have plenty of warning if a group approached, and the tunnels were too small to have to worry about behemoths, but there could still be Venatori stalkers lurking or patrolling nearby.

Also, and more importantly, it was a good excuse to get away from the effects of the pounding adrenaline working on her whenever she looked at Bull. Gods, she needed to get her head in the game. If she has been smarter and less pressed for time, she probably wouldn't have taken Bull at all – opting instead for more ranged damage.

Vivian set up fire mines at the tunnel entrance as Liara slipped into darkness and ventured further into the tomb.

Liara was well aware that battle lust could not be trusted. That the flush of heat between her legs was just a knee-jerk reaction to stimulus and the intoxicating rush of being alive time and time again. She swore, she would never get used to it. And, gods, why did he refuse to wear armor? Was there a way she could somehow order him to on the pretense of making him safer without revealing that he was a distracting battle hazard?

How lovely it would be to actually believe that she wasn't responsible for her recent reactions to The Iron Bull. Except she'd fought beside him countless times before without incident.

At present she failed to see how that was even possible. When he charged into battle ahead of her she was left to stare at the wall of muscle that was his backside until she could sneak behind the enemy and join him in combat. He was no less formidable to see from the front, however. The battle before last, she'd dashed behind a Venatori mage to deliver a death blow, only to find her mark was already only a mere second from death as the axe descended in a powerful arc that cut straight through the man's shoulder and smashed his bones as he crumpled to the floor into a pool of his own still-warm blood. In that moment, behind the doomed man, she saw the terrible sight that was to be his last vision.

Bull was madness. Chaos. Carnage. Bright, glimmering death inhabited physical form. The axe fell from above as if in slow motion. It was guided by the fearsome hands of Falon'Din himself. She was so terrified at the sight that she hadn't even thought to move back until the warm splash of the dead man's blood shocked her back to reality. She knew it was the Iron Bull who stood before her, axe buried in the corpse at their feet, but for just an instant prior, whether it was the anchor or some trick of the mind, it seemed she had peered beyond the veil. In that moment, as she glimpsed death through the eyes of another, she saw not the descending axe of a horned madman, but the flaming maw of a dragon.

And it exhilarated her.

She was so deep in her memory that she failed to notice the chill in the air and the rush of magic forming around her as she stepped towards the end of the corridor to see a lone Venatori mage conjuring a spell made to ward the tunnel behind her. So preoccupied was she with trying to deny her own terrifying desires that she didn't hear the two men stealthed on either side of her, ready to spring their trap.

As the group made their move she cursed herself. Why was she losing her head like this, especially in this most dangerous of places?

The mage began an invocation of fireblast as the first stalker jumped from the shadows towards her. She had a dagger in her main hand instantly, but fumbled with the pouch at her waist for a confusion grenade to buy her some time. She knew she had one left on her. Where had she put it? The third pouch? In her rush to get to the ruins she hadn't been exactly the most organized.

The flask was in hand now, but the mage had already finished casting. The air around her turned stale – first cold, then hot as the fireball formed and combusted around her, throwing her wide from the blast. She landed only a few feet away, ears ringing but otherwise intact. The magical protections on her armor afforded her some relief from the scorching of the magical flames but she was going to need to deal with the mage quickly. She'd lost the confusion grenade during the first blast and she didn't have time to look for it.

The mage was going to be a problem. And quickly. Hastily, she dropped a smoke bomb and took her other dagger in hand, making full haste to close the distances between herself and the Venatori at the other side of the room. A pair of daggers leaped at her from behind, scoring deep gouges in the back of her leather armor and staggering her from the impact. Snarling, she recovered herself and whirled on her attacker, slashing with a fury she only barely controlled. She connected with her target enough times to gravely wound him, but, of course, he wasn't the only one she needed to be worried about.

As the second fireball crashed around her and knocked her to the stone floor, she began to see that she was running out of options. She trust out her left hand, and summoned the fade. She grasped at the nebulous green strands of power that pulled at the edges of her palm and conjured the rift, seeing it fall, in her mind's eye, atop the group of enemies before her. As she released the energy, another pair of daggers fell upon her, stabbing deep into her shoulder. The rift energies went wild as she fell, dropping the screaming fade directly above her. The assassins cried out as their bodies began to pull apart and entangle with the rift in sucking, bloodless chunks. The rift remained shrieking as it twisted reality, contorting the veil above her and pulling the walls in. The stalkers were gone, but she'd missed the mage. She was already pushing herself back up to deal with him when he flew at her.

He was really flying at her. Like, actually soaring through the air. There was something off about the limpness of his limbs, she thought. He was coming closer and closer and then, as surprising as his initial flight, was suddenly gone – sucked into the abyss above her. She was still trying to make sense of the madman's flight when The Iron Bull pulled her away from the rift and the tunnel entrance that was rapidly collapsing with it. The veil shuddered and spun, then took one last gasp and slammed shut, sealing both the fade and the tunnel she'd come from. The ruin rumbled as dirt and rock settled heavily along the passageway. She stared blankly at the aftermath of her magics.

"You ok, boss? Asked her battle-scarred savior, looking down at her. Comprehension dawned on her ever so slowly as she struggled to make sense of the last few, quick moments that had felt like little eternities.

"That flying lunatic. That was you?" She sputtered, incredulous.

"Ha. You saw that huh? Good, right? I saw he just needed a little push." He chuckled, the laughter shaking her as he held her elbow.

The contact sent tingles up the length of her arm that burned in the center of her chest. The aftermath of battle still pulsed through her. Her throat felt tight and dry and her pulse pounded in her ears as she struggled to catch her breath. Everything was sharper, brighter, and beautiful as she tasted the exhilarating thrill of living through yet another close battle. Oh, all the gods and even the Maker, how she loved this feeling. It was one of the few unspoilt, perfect things about her life – this rush. She was untouchable, in the wake of having survived against the odds - invincible and strong. Her shoulder hurt, yes, but she was intact. What could she possibly have to fear?

She looked up at Bull. He loomed before her like some great vision of all the things that she held herself from for reasons that now eluded her. The big beautiful brute and his hulking, handsome monster-body had come to her rescue – and just in time to get cut off from the others. It was all just somehow too perfect. If any of the Elven pantheon had ever graced this crumbling ruin, it must've been one who reveled in mischief. She cast one more look at the collapsed tunnel before she let the pleasant, unforgiving high overwhelm what semblance of reason she might've otherwise had.

Why was she fighting so hard to resist this man? Her fingertips grazed over his chest and shoulder to wrap behind his neck. His one eye glinted dangerously at her from above.

"Hey, Bull?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Yeah, boss?" came the throaty reply.

"That stuff I said before was all bullocks."

He smiled. "Yeah. I know. Ben'Hasrath, remem-"

But she didn't need to hear the words. She didn't need anything but the elimination of the space between him and her. And just like that, as quickly as she'd determined that she wanted to, she kissed him. Again. Gods be damned. She didn't know why, of all things, she felt like she needed to have this particular man or to have him want her back as desperately as she did, but for once she was beyond questioning it. She could worry about the fallout later if she had to. But again, she tried not to question it, just this once.

This time when she kissed him, though, he kissed her back. It didn't take long for their gentle entanglement to become something more urgent, bound in fire and need. He wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her against him. It was all the cue she ever needed. She folded her legs around his waist used whatever leverage she could get to further press against him.

Whatever was happening to her was purely primal, instinct telling her to get as much of him into her and against her as she could. Their tongues battled gracelessly. She sucked at his lips and tongue, nibbling, kissing, and probing with a hunger she'd never been able to achieve from Solas, or even Valen. Almost unconsciously she undulated against him, grinding her hips against where he'd pinned her to himself. The hand behind his neck trailed fingernails roughly up his scalp to finger the strap of his eyepatch and trace around his ears. Her other hand was pressed flat against his chest and she kneaded traced every swell and curve of muscle that she found with heavy fingers. Each scar was a like a trail that she could follow to find and touch some new part of him.

And then Cassandra's panicked voice cut through, disturbing her forbidden bliss. "Inquisitor! Bull! Can you hear us?" She was barely audible behind the rubble.

Liara groaned, reluctantly tearing herself away from Bull's mouth. She tried to respond once between kisses, then twice, then three times before she was successful. Bull continued without her, ravaging the sensitive skin of her neck as she shouted back as best she could.

"We're here, Cass." She gasped as Bull bit down on the meat of her shoulder and she tried to writhe away from him to little effect.

"Are you ok?!"

"Nnnn… yesss," she hissed breathlessly. Thankfully that, along with the rest of her moans, couldn't carry through to the other side. When she tried again a second later she managed to reply at the appropriate volume. "Yes, we're fine. Can you get to us?" Bull nibbled at her ear before supplying helpfully that there was another passage that could be accessed from the level above them. Delighted as she was to not be completely trapped, it meant that her time with Bull was nearly up. And too soon. The moment Cassandra's voice disappeared from the collapsed tunnel, they were back at each other's mouths, greedily stealing whatever they could before they were forced to disentangle and brush themselves off. Bull made a show of pretending to inspect her wounds by running his hands seductively across her body. Her shoulder was bleeding from a deep gouge but began knitting itself together after she knocked back a potion.

They made out once more before Liara was able to collect herself and put on her Inquisitor-in-command face. "Not a word about this to anyone."

He laughed, "My lips are sealed. Well, you know, unless you say otherwise." She worried at how he managed to look a bit too much like the cat that caught the canary, but with footsteps approaching from the other doorway she didn't have time to scold him for it.


	9. Chapter 9

_So, I owe you guys an apology I suppose. I get so afraid nobody is reading and that my story is crap so I get caught up in other endeavors. I'd like to thank Admerxin13 for demanding more; even just this small little comment meant so much to me and made me think I should keep going._

 _Also, this is an action chapter by necessity. I know, I'm sorry, I want to skip to the hot sex too but I'm trying to build up to that. Also I think I really hate the writing style I've been using recently? It's so … clinical I don't even get hot from reading it, which kind of defeats the purpose. Bear with me, here, darlings, I'm going to try to write this chapter more story-like and I SUCK at describing people/action/places so some parts of this might feel a little forced :((_

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When the others caught up to them it was business as usual. The group of them pressed forward, collecting the remaining emerald seals without much difficulty. Once they settled back into their familiar patterns, Liara was free to contemplate the gravity of the decision she'd made to fraternize with Bull. With all the agonizing she'd done about the first time she'd kissed him, it troubled her that she didn't feel more regret for what she'd just done. All of the excuses she'd made previously for why she shouldn't pursue romance with Bull just didn't hold up.

She'd had so many worries. That he couldn't be discreet. That it would be inappropriate to have a relationship with one of her inner circle or that her attraction to him would compromise their mission and prove to be too distracting. Perhaps the most fearful lie she'd told herself was that it would be cheating on Solas – assuming he even cared or came back.

But as they moved through the ruin she realized how foolish, in turn, each of her excuses had been. She didn't have to worry about Bull they way she'd worried about Solas. Bull would never need her protection, for one. For another, he was remarkably laissez-faire about, well, everything. Solas, by contrast, tended to be prone to mood swings and had a habit of vanishing whenever he needed space – which, in retrospect was far too often. It actually instilled a perverse joy in her to know that Solas would most definitely not have approved of her relationship with the Qunari. She smiled wickedly at the Dalish mosaic to her left, meaning to taunt the memory of her former lover. As soon as she did it, though she regretted that she had. Solas might have abandoned her without explaining himself, and a part of her still really wanted to hate him for that, but pretending what this… thing… whatever it was that she was doing with Bull was just a way to get back at him for leaving left a bitter taste in her mouth.

But she had a dungeon to conquer first.

With the last of the emerald seals in hand, she used them to breach the final chamber and last resting place of the emerald knights.

Her breath caught as she stepped gingerly into the vast chamber before her. Was this really a place of her people? How much had been lost to the ravages of time and the brutish abuses of the humans? How much had been reclaimed by nature, or wound seamlessly with it?

The chamber was exquisitely tiled, and expertly laid – broad columns stretched up the center, reaching for the open sky above it and the strong trees that shaded it with a lovely green canopy. From the moment the door was unlocked, she felt her whole being filled with a holy resonance, almost a hum, which was at once beautiful and sad. It was a tomb of heroes, of knights beloved and stolen away. Every time the stepped, the pads of her feet carried a strange, resonating energy straight to her head with a warning: 'walk softly here, young one, and trust nothing solely on appearances'.

Chills raced up and down her spine at the unbidden words; these distant impressions left by her former kin. She looked to the others, who walked in calmly behind her. They admired the cavern as well but seemed unperturbed. It was quite likely that they were not experiencing the same impressions that she was, much as they had not felt the energies of the temple of Mythal as she had – humans had weak senses to the dull whispers of gentle, natural magics of her people.

Suddenly her heart lurched and panged with the sharp desire to have Solas back at her side. He would know what she was feeling. With a tender hand on her shoulder, he'd assure her that everything was alright. This was his area, his domain; he'd know what to do. She swallowed, pressing ever further into the tomb. She'd just come to depend on him and his silent, invisible strength of spirit so much over their adventures that she felt almost naked in these ruins without him. And she supposed she was, in a way. Without her vallaslin, she probably had as little right to tread on this holy ground as a city elf. Best to make this quick then. Figure out what the Venatori wanted with this place and get the hell out before the dead rose to accuse her.

"What," said Cassandra, cutting through her reverie and pointing just beyond to the center of the chamber, "is _that_?"

Liara squinted into the sunlit center, trying to make out what she was seeing. There, suspended in the air, illuminated by glowing purple flames, was a neatly wrapped scroll. It hung too far from the cavern floor to reach and too far from the edge to reach without a good running leap. And, of course, there was the matter of the magical fire. There was no telling what kind of enchantment had been placed on the mysterious treasure. Would it burn her if she tried to retrieve it without the proper ritual? Might it immolate the delicate parchment to protect its contents from unworthy eyes?

"Vivian, what do you make of this?" The lot of them walked to the edge together, inspecting the quiet spectacle. There was no heat and no crackling, no true fire, and yet it danced in mesmerizing blues and reds, licking at the air and emanating an uneasy pulse of danger. The tired mage stretched out both arms and closed her eyes, getting a feel for the flame's energies, touching invisible threads of power that would tell her of the tapestry woven around the scroll. As ever, Vivian was careful to mask her expression and the effort this exploration was costing her – the only sign that she was exerting any effort at all was a slight trembling in her fingers. She was done a moment later, dropping her arms gracefully to rest on the flaring hips of her robe.

"Nothing to be alarmed by, my dear. It's actually dreadfully primitive."Liara barely resisted the urge to glare a warning at the mage about calling my peoples' magic primitive. "It's a protective magic tethered to these sconces. Lighting them will grant us access. It couldn't be simpler. But," she added with one of her trademark wicked smiles, "I should warn you that turning these particular keys will release a fair amount of magic. It's likely, in this place, spirits will be drawn to the dead."

Liara raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"So you are saying we might encounter undead resistance," said Cassandra. It wasn't a question.

"Heh, easy pickings compared to those Venatori mages," commented The Iron Bull dryly.

Liara wasn't quite so excited about the prospect of killing (for a second time) the heroes who rested in this tomb. She groaned and rubbed her temples. It had to be done. The spirits pressing against the veil and stealing the corpses of the long dead were no more the people whose bodies they inhabited than the lingering magics present in the air here were their gods. "We need whatever's in that scroll. I really hope disturbing my ancestors is worth it." She nodded to Vivian who summoned the spark to light the first sconce.

The veilfire torch sprang to life, bathing them in its eerie magical glow. Around them small specs of light fell like snowflakes, moaning as they touched the ground and rising again as animated corpses and ragged bones. A fireblast fell around them, scattering their old bones far and wide and setting the risen corpses ablaze. They made quick work of the rest of the animations and moved mechanically from one torch to another in a rhythm they'd long become so accustomed to that it no longer even seemed tedious. Light, kill, rinse, repeat.

They went around the room, lighting each of the four sconces and defeating the risen undead in turn until they were all lit. Nothing happened. Liara frowned at the scroll, still flame-licked and floating out of reach.

"We must have missed something," she said, lighting a veilfire torch from the last sconce. The group fanned out, looting the corpses and searching for clues.

"Inquisitor, back here," called Cassandra from the back of the room. She was pointing down a little corridor that looped behind the back wall. The group converged towards the little hallway. Sure enough, the last sconce was hanging solidly on the wall directly behind the stone idol. Hopefully this would be the last of it. She carried the torch over to the sconce, but she was distracted by a twinkling sound to her right. "Hold on," she said, "I think I found some runes." Holding the torch close, she squinted at the strange markings that lit the wall. The glowing marks certainly _looked_ like runes – or at least parts of them – but the most intriguing part was the tiny, vaguely familiar script held inside the markings. The words were elven, but some dialect she struggled to pull the meaning from. "These are…. epitaphs?" But they only brought more questions. Where these people that were written those who laid to rest in this tomb?

"I'm sure we can make sense of these ruins _later_ , my dear?" Quipped an annoyed Vivian. Liara scoffed. It was so easy for humans to make light of history when they hadn't lost so much of theirs. Void, the humans even had the gall to actually think they could write Elven history for themselves. Human scholars on Elven lore who wrote books about the savage elves, their wild nature, and their need to be cultured and subdued, heedless of the truth, oppressing her kind with convenient lies for centuries.

Liara bit her lip. Now was, perhaps, not the time for such thoughts. First, they needed to get out of here and then she could send in her people to interpret the markings. Reluctantly, she turned, holding the torch against the brazier, which lapped the magical fire greedily. A great rumble tore through the cavern, shaking the ground under their feet. Liara cast a terrified glance at her companions.

"What in the Maker's name…"

Liara hastily dropped the torch, stepping into a low crouch and creeping around the tunnel's edge, dagger drawn.

"Fuck," she breathed, right before an invisible hand clamped tight around her entire being, pulling her in a magical vice towards the evil, glimmering revenant at the center of the room and squeezed all the breath from her lungs. She landed directly in front of the undead warrior. The void inside his armor sucked in her stolen strength, compelling her essence to surrender to it in sheer terror.

"Little help, guys!"

Death hissed from the monster where a mouth should have been as it released its grip from her and swung its great sword down upon her. She was only just able to get her blades up to block the blow. The revenant's icy blade pushed her back with magical force, crushing her down slowly, hopelessly. Despair sat deep within her bones, weakening her and invading her mind with doubts. The creature before her was too large, too strong – it would consume her easily into its blackness.

And then it was gone, vanishing instantly. She could breathe. The monster before her was just another undead in armor. Liara cast a grateful glance at Cassandra for her holy might before pushing back with all her strength, wresting the revenant's sword off of her and delivering a stab through its armor. It responded with an ear-shattering shriek, only to be silenced a moment later when a firebolt crashed against its back, dropping the monster to a knee. Liara felt it focus its baleful, burning hatred on Vivian as it stabbed its sword into the ground and roared. It pulled at every corner of the room, commanding all energies towards its irresistible call, meaning to suck them all in and strike them at once. Liara supposed it might have been an excellent strategy… if most of her party were ranged. As it happened, the mass pull only served to hasten Bull's charge, bringing him flying at inhuman speeds, his one dark eye wide with terrible, violent glee.

Liara thought, then, that she had never before seen such a beautifully dangerous being. Though the timing was horribly inappropriate, a little thrill shot through her as he let loose his battle-roar. She shuddered to think of that same savage wildness bucking under her if only they'd had more time. Of course, she'd have to revisit that thought later. Maybe when they weren't trying to kill a demon-possessed corpse in the tomb of her heroes.

* * *

"I don't understand." She held the scroll aloft in trembling fingers, reading the ancient account but unable, perhaps unwilling, to grasp its meaning – and the terrible importance it held. Her throat seemed to clamp down, suddenly parched and swollen, holding her tongue prisoner to keep from saying what she was afraid this would mean.

In her tiny, battle-stained hands, she held the true account of Red Crossing and the cause of the terrible slaughter of her people that had started all of the bloodshed between humans and elves in the region. It was fitting, really, in a funny little way, that elven fingers were seeping blood into the account. Here she had believed all along, as had her people, that the humans started the war – that their savage hatred and violent nature had always been the great evil that haunted her people.

A hand flew to her open mouth. She wouldn't admit this. She couldn't face this.

And yet, in her heart, she felt the truth of it. The smallest of sobs rippled up through her chest. It defied her clenched throat and swollen tongue, slipping through her fingers and into the air around her. Her knees threatened to buckle. She fought back the urge to vomit as she staggered to the edge of the bridge.

Warm hands found her, encircling her protectively and holding her up. She didn't look; it could only be Bull.

"Inquisitor!" Cassandra cried, somewhere to her left. Unable to speak, Liara merely held the scroll out, eager to get the damning missive away from her. Swift fingers snatched it away from hers while Bull's strong hands tightened gently on her shoulders. She stared over the edge, processing oblivion, as Cassandra unfurled the delicate parchment and became witness to the most fatal of her peoples' flaw. Breath hissed from her lips. "Maker."

"What is it?" asked the deep voice of The Iron Bull directly above her, sending reverberations from his chest into her back.

"It's…" Cassandra started softly, "the true record of what happened at… Red Crossing. From the elves. It-it details… They were in love – the girl at Red Crossing and an elf were to be married in secret. But the elves struck first and killed the girl by mistake." The words weighed heavy on Liara's heart. Her stomach lurched again. There is was, the terrible truth, and all of them there to witness. She felt all eyes upon her, but she kept her gaze firmly trained on the floor below. Iron Bull's thumb stroked her arm gently. "This changes the whole history of the war. Inquisitor. The Chantry would be very interested in this."

"No." Her voice was a fragile thing, stretched too thin across the cavern, barely a whisper. "I don't… I don't know."

"We cannot keep this quiet!" Cassandra took one bold step toward her and Liara felt Bull straighten behind her, as if he made to protect her. From Cassandra. It was sweet, but unnecessary. She placed one hand gingerly over Bull's arm and turned towards the seeker.

"I know, Cass." She still felt ill. The elves were wrong. Centuries of blaming the humans, hating the humans, and feeling victimized and so much of it could have been prevented. It didn't need to continue. She thought of her former clan; the xenophobia, the mistrust, the blind fury they all had for the shemlen. Righteous indignation coursed through her as she recalled the many times Valen had voiced his disapproval of her fraternization with the humans. They were murderers, he said. Would he have shot the girl in Red Crossing, as she ran, clutching the letter from her betrothed, Liara wondered? Would Solas?

"The elves have a right to know first. They'll … never believe it if it comes from the humans." Liara shrugged Bull's big hands off of her gingerly. She could still feel the ghost of their warmth and she missed them instantly. She met Cassandra's gaze directly, praying the stubborn seeker would not fight her on the issue. The two women squared off for two solid moments before Cassandra resigned the thick scroll back to Liara, who was quick to fasten it securely to her hip.

The dark-haired seeker shuffled . "Why would the Venatori be interested in this?"

"Who cares?" Scoffed Bull, "They collect weird shit." Liara frowned at the implication that her peoples' history counted as 'weird shit', but she said nothing. The Venatori seemed to pop up wherever there might be artifacts of power, regardless of origin; it was possible they thought the knights hid something other than just this information.

"But what does Corypheus gain by keeping the dalish and the humans at odds with each other?" Cassandra pressed.

Liara couldn't help but laugh at that, her curt laugh cold and bitter. "This information wouldn't change that. Rewriting a small portion of history won't change centuries of inbred hatred. It won't change the alienages. The slavery."

"But it might be a start," came the quiet reply.

Liara wanted to say something else, but when she looked at her friend, she found that she couldn't. Something in the seeker's sad, hopeful eyes made her want to believe it could be true. She doubted if Corypheus cared one whit about the relationship between elves and humanity, personally. But then again he did fancy himself a centuries-old darkspawn demigod from ancient Tevinter – he didn't really need a reason to want everyone to suffer. So she quietly bit back her response and nodded, clapping the seeker on the shoulder as she made for the exit.

* * *

 _Yeah, that's it. Sorry! Figured I'd give you something at least to let you know I haven't forgotten. If you like my story so far send me a message or leave a review. Hawt sechs soon! WoooO!_


	10. Chapter 10

_Alright, honesty time, I'm terrified to write this chapter. This is technically my first non-human story and it's been a while since I set about writing this story. I love these characters and I want to do them justice, but I also want the juicy bits of the story to titillate my audience and I'm always so desperately afraid that I'll fail in that regard. Also, I'm trying to write quite a bit of this at work so zoning out deep into the dark sexy part of my brain is a bit of a stretch. Well, let's get to it. Liara has only barely had a week to cope with Solas' disappearance, is having trouble coping with the sudden –almost violent – passion she's feeling for Bull, and now, to top it all off, she's just found out the true account of Red Crossing. Her pride as an elf is compromised and once again she's feeling tremendous loss and a dissociating from her people. As she runs from having to confront her new identity, she draws nearer to falling over the edge into Bull's waiting arms._

 _WHOOSH!_

* * *

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Gods-freaking-dammit.

Liara Lavellan had come a long way in her time as Inquisitor. She'd arrived at the temple of sacred ashes as an elven spy, ready to prove her devotion to her clan and dispel her lover's accusations that she was a shemlen-loving sycophant. When the Inquisition captured her she wanted nothing more than to escape and go back to her simple life of hiding.

Then there was Solas. Bright, mysterious, neither Dalish nor city elf but something else – something whole. He challenged her to question not just all she'd been taught about magic and spirits, but of all things elven. For a time she'd thought she hated him. She supposed it was only natural, then, that her passionate dislike for him had gradually morphed into something else over the weeks they spent at Haven. When it fell – when she'd lost her second home just a short time after leaving her clan - he'd lead them somewhere safe, beautiful, and isolated. It was Solas who revealed the nature of the orb that had caused so much turmoil. Once she'd finally accepted that maybe she knew shockingly little about her people's history, Solas had been there with comfort and understanding. He was her life raft. He guided her to an identity apart from her elven heritage until at last she felt she could unshackle herself from it entirely, choosing to give up even her vallaslin.

So she shouldn't have been all that shocked to discover, in those ruins, that her people had covered up the role they'd played in their own extermination at Red Crossing. It shouldn't have hurt her that a people she'd chosen to give up her connection with were not all that she'd once believed.

But it did.

Liara, The Iron Bull, Vivian, and Cassandra exited the ruins in near silence. There was some light banter but Liara barely heard it, so lost in her thoughts she was.

Why did it seem like the more she learned about the elves, the less she felt she knew. All the years of secrecy, and for what? To protect their pride so they could justify their hatred by blaming the humans for wars they were just as guilty of creating?

She just didn't want to think about this right now.

The ruins seemed more ghostly than ever as they made their way out, passing over ancient corpses and the newly dead alike, their footsteps echoing off the cavern walls.

When they at last emerged back into the warm sunlight breaking through the ruins, Inquisition forces were in place and ready for their triumphant return. Half a dozen scouts and soldiers each broke into cheers as they exited the ruins. A healer slipped silently by her side, hands abruptly flying over her and assessing her injuries. The gouges in her shoulder tingled with warmth as the magic knit her immediate injuries. She stood still and let the healer complete his ritual, but there was no balm or healing magic for her soul as she contemplated what to do about Din'an Hanin.

The others set about their post-dungeon routines as well. Cassandra immediately ran a debrief by the captain, informing him of the resistance they'd faced, what they could expect to find, and any areas of interest that would need to be investigated. Vivian's only complaint was that her tailor would be furious about the tear on her sleeve, but she was otherwise unharmed and not in need of healing. All was fairly typical. There was comfort in the routine. In seeing people behave exactly as one would expect.

It wasn't until she saw Bull that she fell apart. Judging by all the blood covering the qunari, he was probably in worse shape than she was, but it was impossible to tell how much of that blood was his. What destroyed her was that he didn't seem particularly concerned about himself. Instead, he was knelt over the small, broken body of Tavin. She couldn't say why, but tears sprang to her eyes as the big man took the frail elf into his strong arms and lifted him. He carried the tattered corpse gingerly, like a child, to a wide cart and set him down there, covering him and tucking him under a sheet. As his ruined, haunting face disappeared under the covering, a wet, unbidden tear rolled down Liara's cheek.

Bull turned and caught her gaze, giving her a small nod. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"Thank you," she mouthed, as Bull set about collecting the bodies of the fallen.

Once the healer had finished his work, she thanked him and sidled up beside Bull.

"You should go get healed," she whispered, placing a hand gingerly on one enormous bicep, "I'll have the troops take care of the rest." She looked up at him. He looked down at her over his shoulder and smiled.

"Thanks boss, I'm ok. Just need a bit of a rinse. I was thinking of heading over to the waterfall but I dunno if I should go alone. Bears, you know." His one eye glittered mischievously.

* * *

She was nervous the whole way to the river. For the sake of appearances, she'd stayed behind with the troops for a while after Bull left, making sure Cassandra hadn't missed anything in her handoff report, ensuring that the dead were properly loaded up, and staying behind to ensure that nothing further was required of her. She kept herself busy as much as she could while her mind warred with indecision. There could be no mistaking Bull's thinly veiled offer to join him. She wanted to go. She had every reason to indulge herself, but she made every excuse not to.

Was she dealing with her loss in a possibly destructive way? Certainly. Did that make it wrong? And did she really want to think about that when her body was screaming at her to go? Her heart raced, already counting the steps in her mind that would take her to the waterfall that Bull described and the shallow pool at its base. She pushed back the doubts, the fears, all the nagging little insecurities, and even the weight of the ruins she'd just left. She soothed them with her memories and thoughts of Iron Bull. Of his arms around her on the balcony, of his warm breath on her neck, the fierce sight of him in battle and the way he made her blood pump simply by being next to him. She was certain she had never met a more dangerous man in all her life. She'd seen him cut dozens of men literally in half. She'd fought dragons and demons beside him and never seen the limit of his stamina or capacity for carnage. And yet, he could be tender. He had a laugh that made you feel welcome and a smile that made you want to trust him, even if you know you shouldn't. And that body…

How had she been beside such a man all this time without feeling this inexplicable pull to him – this need to have him under her hands and to feel the fire of his flesh burning in her palms? Just one time. Just once. That's all she needed to be free of this desire. If she could have him once, she could stop wondering what it would be like to be in the power of such a man. She could stop wondering what it would be like to trace those scars all across his body or how it would feel to have his mouth on her, like in her dream.

It felt like no time at all before she reached the river. She followed it in a half-daze, letting the shimmering waters form a kind of white noise in her mind that grew louder the closer she got to the waterfall.

Bull was already there, of course. His armor and gear lay on the bank and he was stripped of all but his undergarments as he stood hip-deep in the small pool at the base of the falls. The sight of him took her breath away. She'd seen him in similar states of undress before - Bull was never really taken with modesty – but this time it felt like he was inviting her to look.

"Hey, you showed," he called, waving, "I was about to get out before I turned all pruny." He laughed his charming Iron Bull laugh.

"Hm. Is it safe to be leaving your gear so far away out here in the wild like that?" She asked, eyeing him up and down. Water ran down his ashen skin in little rivulets that hugged each swell of muscle. "You never know what you might find out here."

He chuckled, not at all perturbed by her open admiration of him. "Good thing you're here to protect me, then," he said, jokingly.

"Yeah. About that…" She started to undress on the shore next to where he'd placed his stuff. Her daggers and belts thudded on the soft grass to be followed quickly by her trousers. She turned away as she slipped out of her armor and slid the tunic over her head. She decided to keep the underwear, mostly out of some bizarre shyness and partly because he'd similarly left his on. She covered her breasts with her arms as she turned back to the water and began to walk into the pool.

"Now who's out here all defenseless?" he taunted, echoing her previous question with one of his wicked, winning smiles.

"I'm not without a means of defending myself," she replied briskly. The shock of the cool water splashing around her ankles distracted her somewhat from the insane nervousness that flooded through her as she continued on to her uncertain fate.

"Oh?"Asked Bull. Her panic must've been evident to him but thankfully he wasted no time in helping her overcome it as he waded over to meet her in the shallows.

In one fluid motion he grabbed her arms, whirling her around, and pinning her against him. She gasped, struggling against him, but he had one strong arm wrapped firmly across her naked chest, trapping her arms between them, and the other arm holding her by the waist. It happened so quickly that she wasn't sure if she was supposed to be playing a game with him and trying to escape or if she could just admit how eager she was to be trapped by him.

Nervous laughter bubbled out of her as she bucked against him and kicked against the ground in mock attempts to escape, but she couldn't make the big man budge. She tried several more times to get free, but his grip was crushing and all she was getting for her efforts was winded and tired.

"Fine," she admitted at last, laughing through labored breaths, "you caught me."

"Hm. What should I do with the mighty Inquisitor? I bet the 'Vints would pay a lot for you. And I am just a mercenary, after all." The low sound of his voice reverberated through his chest, sending vibrations through Liara's entire body. He was impossibly close. His breath was hot on her neck, his chest pressed hard against her back and arms, and she'd only just realized her ass pressed dangerously tight against his hips. Her throat suddenly felt dry.

"You – you could ransom me back to my people." She tried to hold still, but every breath pressed her deeper into Bull's embrace.

He laughed. "Nah, what's to stop you from ordering them to arrest or kill me once I let you go?"

"I would never," she said, softly. They were playing, she knew, but it felt real. It felt like he really had her. Like she was his captive. And, gods, she was liking it.

"All the same," he breathed, "It'd be safer to take my ransom here. Except… oh no… you've nothing on you but your underwear." Liara was grateful he couldn't fully see the blush creeping over her face.

"They're yours," she said, shyly. She wasn't sure she was saying the right things. Or even what one usually says when they're playing a game of naked hostage catch. Thankfully, he didn't seem too thrown off by her clumsy attempts at wordplay. The arm that had her pinned around the waist eased up, his hand began slowly trailing its way down her naked belly. She shivered at his touch, the contrast between the firm grip on her upper half and the gentle caresses at her waist stirring up powerful longing in her. His fingers worked along the outside of her undergarments, teasing her with gentle touches.

"Thing is – I don't actually want them." He chuckled, slipping his fingers inside her panties. She sucked in a breath as he navigated his way lower. She jerked against him involuntarily as his fingers trailed over her bush and continued lower…lower. Oh, gods. Gods, she wanted this. She ached for it. And she couldn't think of a single reason not to allow herself to have this. How much had she sacrificed for the Inquisition? For her people? Didn't she deserve this?

"What – what _do_ you want?"

"I want you to admit that you need me. That you need this." He ground his hips into her ass, and she could feel his cock twitch slightly as it grew.

"What , exactly, do you think I need?" Her voice was as weak and shaky as her legs felt.

"Mmm. Let's see," he said, trailing one impossibly large hand back out from her panties and pulling them down one side at a time, "I think you need to lose these for starters." He separated from her briefly to help her guide her undergarments over the curve of her ass before pressing back against her, somehow harder than before. "And then, I think you need me to show you how to relax. Because you've obviously forgotten how to let yourself have what you want."

"What I –" whatever question she started to ask died in her throat, swallowed up by the guttural moan that escaped her the instant Bull set about to destroying her willpower by skillfully teasing her clit. He found it instantly, clamping down with the self-assured firmness of an expert and grinding against her in long, even strokes. She whined, bucking against him, but she was well and truly trapped – every motion to escape his hands only pressed her harder against his increasing hardness.

"We…" she gasped, totally caught in the sensations he was dragging from her, "we can't do this here." She moaned. Fuck, what was she doing protesting? She'd never been handled so expertly before – she never wanted it to end. But what if someone saw? What if someone heard? "We're going to get caught."

"I think you'd like to get caught, personally," he whispered into her ear, his thumb still twirling hard circles around her clit. "What would people think to see the mighty Inquisitor like this? Naked…" He stroked his fingers along the length of her pussy. "…powerless…"

She bucked against him, but his arm around her waist trapped her firmly pressed against him, keeping her subjected to the torturous workings of his hands across her body. His erection strained against her cheeks and pressed into the small of her back and it thrilled her. He felt huge and hot. Just imagining him inside of her, filling her with such sweet bliss, was sending her far far away to a place where she could barely recognize herself. She whined. Struggling against him only made her situation worse, grinding herself back against his throbbing member and forcing him to press more firmly against her sex. She heard no complaints from him, however. He seemed to enjoy her pitiful attempts to free herself from the pleasure he was subjecting her to and he only pulled her harder against himself.

"Face it, Liara," he breathed, pinching her nipple between his fingers. She squealed and keened against him, moaning savagely as he continued to demonstrate his mastery over her body. "You need this. You need me to fuck you and make you feel good." Oh gods he was right. The fingers that traced the folds of her sex probed at her, rubbing the length of her. She was so wet already, and she was certain it had nothing to do with the water splashing around her thighs. She did need this. This was uncomplicated, animalistic pleasure. She didn't want to think about why she wanted it or who this man was to her outside of this moment. At this precise moment all that mattered was the deft way he was so skillfully manipulating her clit with his thumb, the painful pinching of her nipples and kneading of her breasts, and the fingers that were steadily pressing against her aching cunt.

"Fuck," she hissed, throwing back her head. It was all the admission Bull seemed to need. In that instant, in her surrender to him, he shoved two large fingers inside of her at once, never breaking the rhythm of his thumb against the pearl of nerves between her legs, and thrust his tongue into her open mouth. She nearly screamed. She moaned loudly into his mouth as his fingers filled her so fully and completely that she broke right there, shuddering around him. Her hips jerked, completely out of her control, but he held her steady as she plowed through her first, unexpected orgasm. Her legs were completely weak, each thrust of his fingers lifted and pulled her into him, rubbing her ass back and forth against his swollen cock. He kept rocking her there, grinding through her pleasure with a merciless consistency that didn't let her come down. His mouth stifled her cries and allowed her the freedom to moan and sob with equal ferocity as he continued to keep her at the peak of stimulation. She tried to speak but the words were jumbled and he batted them away with his tongue. He probed deep into her mouth, teasing her tongue to join him again a few agonizing seconds later when she'd finished the first waves of convulsions.

He continued to work his fingers in and out of her, dragging them out of her and slowly stroking her glistening lips before dipping them back inside of her. His thumb, thankfully, had ceased its relentless pursuit to drive her mad and gently caressed her vulva as she came down off her first dizzying orgasm. His grip around her hip loosened, but she remained pressed tight against him. He fucked her slowly with his fingers like that while they kissed and she found herself pushing back against them, pressing herself back against his hips and gyrating in small, matching circles to try and entice his cock. She felt him smiling against her lips.

"Told you," he said, sliding his thick, wet fingers out of her. All at once he turned her around, cupping her ass gently. She tried not to trip over her panties as she twirled around at his direction.

He stood before her, naked down to his underwear, shining in the sun like the very face of a mountain itself. She looked at him squarely, hungrily, eyeing every sculpted, scarred inch of him. Each swell of muscle called to her to be touched, to be tasted, to be admired by all of her senses. He was stunning. He was frightening. She'd seen him unclothed to his waist a thousand times – he certainly had no shame about his body – not that he had any reason to be, but never like this. Never there just for her to view, to kiss, to manipulate at will.

There was a story to every part of him. He was carved both for and by battle. She was mesmerized by the lines of his body and how they melded together. From the vast swells of his chest muscles, she traced a long scar down to the left side of his belly. Then, from there, the soft curves of his musculature dipped artfully to his hips and to more scars and more curves – the endings of which were hidden below his undergarments. And from there? There was one more substantial line to follow, pressed against his briefs.

Gods, it looked huge. His erection bulged against the fabric, filling it fully in a mouth-watering spectacle. It was impossible not to stare, not to wonder, not to want to see. She shivered, despite the heat racing up through her chest and coloring her cheeks. She reached for him, tentatively, caressing the outside of the fabric separating him from her hand. He responded to her touch, his cock twitching against her. Her hand looked so small against him, gingerly pressing against him and tracing the outline of his package. Time was lost. It felt like she was following the curve of him forever. From the hard base, up, up, and up, to the swell of his head. She could nearly smell him, even with the water all around them. The smell of his sex was heady, warm, powerful, entirely masculine. A barely perceptible patch of wetness on his underclothes at the tip of his cock head enticed her. She rubbed at it, smoothing her hand over his head beneath the soft cotton. It was slick and hot. It made her feel powerful. It made her want more. He groaned, momentarily breaking her concentration. When she looked up at him, he was staring back at her ravenously.

She didn't know what to say.

"I can smell you," she said, softly, continuing to stroke him, sliding over the small patch of precum staining his briefs.

"Can you?" he asked, his tone impossible to discern, but somehow dangerous.

"It's making me hungry," she panted, pressing her palm into his manhood, rubbing the stiffness from inside its prison. He smiled, his mouth contorting into an almost feral snarl and he pulled her back flush against him by the firm palmfulls of her ass. As their bodies met again, she moaned. Fire bled from his skin and awakened sparks inside of her she'd long thought dormant. She needed to have him inside her, to merge her flesh wish his and be ignited in the blaze of passion that threatened to consume them both.

"I'd rather taste _you_ ," he said. Liara watched, transfixed, as he brought the fingers that had just been inside her up to his lips. They still shone with dewy wetness. The sight of them caused her to squirm with embarrassment. How had he gotten her so wet in such a short time? How had he made her cum with just those beautifully gifted hands? He remained locked in eye contact with her as he brushed first his bottom lip, then the top with her juices. His tongue escaped his parted lips and lapped at his fingers seductively, stealing every taste of her that they contained as though he were savoring her flavor. She whined, self-consciously as he put on his little show, sucking each of his fingers in turn and smacking his lips.

"Divine," was all he said. The words came out hoarse, breathless, like a prayer. He slid around her neck, catching her head in his hand and forcing her lips to his, forcing her to taste her cum on his mouth and tongue. She moaned against him, utterly caught and enraptured by the sexy, horribly wrong act of kissing this man. The smell of herself, sweet, salty, and sinful on him mixed with the flavors of honey, of caramel, of Orlesian danishes served to her on the most bountiful platter of The Iron Bull's lips. Soon she was forcing herself deeper into his mouth, kissing herself off of his lips and sucking his tongue into her, encouraging it to roam freely, to ravish her entirely.

Gods… gods… this man! This horrible, sexy monstrous, man. She ripped at his undergarments as they kissed, tearing at them with both hands to get inside, to cradle the warmth between his legs and hold it in her palms. Her delicate fingertips dipped beneath the fabric and she whined as the hot flesh underneath brushed over her palm and wrist. She tried to look down at him, but is mouth was needy, insatiable; he growled and pushed her head back up to him with the grip he had in her hair. She moaned into his mouth, pleading with him in the small noises there to let her go, to let her see, but he held her fist tightly in her hair and the other hand cradled and kneaded her ass.

Without looking, she slipped the undergarments down past his hips and explored him, her mind wild with imaging what she was holding. The muscles she'd seen above his hips dipped low to his pubic bone. The skin there was unscarred, soft but for the course shocks of hair that clustered around his manhood. His thighs were thick and firm, like strong tree limbs completely grounded in the earth. She doubted she had time to freely explore all of them even if they had been the most urgent thing on her mind. But as Bull's tongue washed the taste of her into her eager mouth, the thing she most wanted to feel, what she most wanted to explore, was the terrifying length of him that she's felt pressing against his breeches a moment ago. She was careful at first, tentative to touch him, unsure of what exactly she might find. When her hands brushed against him, she shuddered and sighed before taking him fully into her palms.

He was thick. She'd found him somewhere midway down the shaft, she guessed, and she couldn't even wrap one of her tiny hands fully around it. When the other hand joined her on his cock, they rubbed gently up and down the length of him, exploring him one inch at a time. His mouth moved hypnotically against hers while she touched him. She traced the thick vein under his cock all the way to the base, which twitched and pulsed against her when she found it. She gripped it, rubbing the base of his shaft in small motions before wandering lower between his legs.

He felt pretty much like any other man she'd ever held. Quite a bit bigger, certainly, but all the same stuff was there. She assume Qunari had a pretty similar package, given that she'd never heard anything to the contrary, but she'd still never seen or held one for herself before. Well, she still had to see it, technically, but so far everything felt normal. His balls were held tightly near the base of his cock and she ran her fingers around their velvety softness, coaxing and massaging the skin there and swirling them around in her hands. They were a good size, but they were nothing like what came to mind with the words "bull testicles", which was an enormous relief, even if it was an unfounded fear to have had.

He moaned into her mouth as she caressed his balls, but she didn't want to linger there. She slid her hands back up his shaft, reveling in his responses to her touch. She had no idea how long she expected him to be. She expected each new inch of flesh to be almost to the end of it, but he kept coming. She was beginning to worry when she at last came to the head. He had one of the most pronounced ridges she'd every felt and she traced the edge of his head all the way around, up and over, trying to picture what she was feeling. He was, without a doubt, the biggest man she'd ever touched, but without being able to see it, there was no way to know just how much her mind was playing tricks on her. She fingered the edge of his head once more, admiring the softness and the heat emanating from him, before gliding over the edge and taking his head into her hands. She rubbed over it with her palm, gliding a little bit of precum from the tip over him. He hissed, at last wresting his face from her. He looked down at her malevolently, desire shining in his one dark eye.

"Still hungry?" he panted. His broad chest pressed against her breasts, heaving into her with every breath as if he were breathing for the both of them.

She looked back at him with equal ferocity. "Yes. Yes, please."

He released his grip on her hair and she dropped her gaze down to her hands and the throbbing member within. She sucked in a breath as she gazed at his naked splendor, stifling a low moan on the exhale. Her imagination had done him no credit. He was as terrifyingly huge as he was beautiful. She had never seen anything quite like him before. The base of his cock was partially obscured by dark black hairs, but the base had the same dark grayish tone as the rest of him. Thick veins ran along his length. He seemed to go on far too long. Longer than her hand. She was in awe of him. As his cock neared the tip, his skin lightened and colored to an almost rosy pink. The swell of his head was more enticingly gorgeous than it felt – were it not for the size of him, she would want nothing more in that instant than to sink to her knees in the water and take it inside her mouth.

She looked back at him, surprise clearly evident on her face and he grinned, knowingly. "Maybe next time, huh?"

She screamed in protest, grabbing frantically at his cock. "No! Bull…" she gasped, "fuck me. Fuck, please. I can't wait until next time." She had no idea where her desperation was coming from. Just yesterday she'd tried to convince herself that she didn't want this man – that it was all her mind and her loneliness playing tricks on her and now she was actually, literally, begging for his cock. "I can't – I mean, I can't take… all that… you… in my. My mouth." She blushed and he watched her with an unreadable expression. But as thoroughly embarrassed as she was, she wouldn't let herself stop. She didn't know if this was going to be a one-time thing or if she'd ever have another chance, but she needed to explore this lust that Bull inspired within her. "But I want you. Please, Bull. Please."

He lifted her by the waist, trapping her arms between them as he walked them to the riverbank. Her panties slid off of her feet as he dragged her and were whisked away downstream, but there was nothing she could do. Her cunt ached with need again and her heart thudded violently against her ribs as he set her down in the grass, just off the bank. He leaned over her, looking down with a dark, vacant expression of barely restrained need. Her arms drifted up to his hips and she pulled herself up to him, eager to fill herself with him again. He held there, above her, inches away.

"Last chance, Inquisitor. You want this?"

Yes, gods, yes. It felt as if she'd been waiting for him to take her forever. How had she never noticed him before? She bucked her hips against him, begging him, silently, to just do it, to tell him he didn't even need to ask, but he stayed right where he was, with his cock positioned right at her entrance, so painfully, torturously close.

"Please, Bull," she begged, for the second time, "please fuck me."

And with that it was done. Her fate was sealed. There would never be a time when she didn't crave him, didn't need to be filled with him. He leaned back down over her, covering her mouth with his again in a deep kiss.

He thrust inside of her in one long stroke, guided easily by the soaking wetness he'd already coaxed from her. And though she was already so ready for him, she screamed. She was utterly torn apart by the sweet, blinding pleasure that bordered on pain, filling her up entirely. He held himself there, fully inside her, for a while until her scream faded into small moans. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she struggled to adjust to the thick length of his cock. She'd never had a man this size inside of her before. Colors popped in her vision and she flushed hot and cold in alternating waves.

He just held there, waiting, letting her catch her breath, letting her get used to him. After a short while, the fullness began to feel good. She squeezed down around him, testing the feeling of him, amazed that how much of an impact even the littlest of motions was having on her.

When she signaled that she wanted him to continue, he began to draw slowly out of her. She moaned the entire time, pushing herself flat against the ground and digging her palms into the earth. Fuck, he seemed to never end. He pulled back one slow inch at a time and Liara felt every part of him as he drew back. The head of his cock dragged back against her so perfectly that she nearly came just from his slow withdrawal. When the shaft of him was free, he began to slide himself back in, just as slowly as he'd gone out, letting her continue to adjust to him. When he hilted inside of her she sobbed deliriously but she begged him to keep going. He worked himself in and out of her in a slow, steady rhythm; all the way in, all the way out. Her thighs were already slick with desire by the time she came for a second time. The second orgasm was among the most brutal in her entire life. She convulsed violently around his cock as he continued to move in and out of her with painful slowness. By the time she came down, she no longer felt any pain from having him inside her and was pushing back against his hips and moaning wantonly.

She felt as though she were in a dream. Through the haze of her ecstasy she saw the beautiful mountain of a man hovering over her, his muscled chest so close… so close. She squirmed under him, trying to take any part of him that was close enough to her into her mouth – to kiss him, to bite him, to taste any and every part of him. She grabbed for him, sliding her hands up his neck to force her lips back on his. She writhed against him, keening in agonizing post-orgasmic bliss as he began to pulse into her with increasing speed until he too was groaning back into her mouth.

"Fuck yes," he breathed, gasping and groaning. "Come on," he urged, pulsing into her steadily as yet another orgasm threatened to rip her entirely from her awareness of the world. The whole camp could've walked in on them and she wouldn't have cared – wouldn't have noticed. All that mattered was the sound of his mounting pleasure and the hot fullness of his cock inside her. She grasped at him, her hands raking whatever she could grab as if the little claws were beyond her control.

When he came, it was pure animal. He roared and raged as if he were trying to rip into her as he emptied with a sexual fury she'd never known. It was all she could do to hold on, to squeeze him tight inside her as he shuddered and convulsed, pulsing with every shot. She clutched him as hard as she could as he pushed forward into her, draining every last bit of himself before slumping over her, breathing heavily.

They didn't stay like that for long. After three blissfully, nightmarishly hard orgasms, Liara would've been perfectly content to stay in the grass listening to Bull's breathing and feeling him slowly deflate inside of her, but they were going to need to account for their long absence as it was. Bull recovered much more readily than she. He propped himself up only moments later, still catching his breath.

"Hey," he said, looking down at her. She gave him only a cursory glance before groaning and stubbornly clamping her eyes shut. "You good? I didn't hurt you too bad did I?"

"Just the right amount. Fuck, do we have to go back? I don't think my legs work anymore."

He laughed. "We don't have to but I imagine they'll come looking for you eventually. And you'll probably want to wash before they find you. You smell like death. And sex." He nipped her ear playfully and she squirmed against him, laughing softly.

"Well you could've let me rinse before," she said, somewhat indignantly.

"No way, boss. Besides, I kind of like it." He rolled his hips against her, teasing her with his still semi-rigid cock before pulling out of her with a grunt and offering her help up and back to the pool.

* * *

 _Well that's it folks, I'm tired of writing this chapter so I'm going to wrap it up. I'm kind of embarrassed so I don't know what else to say. Let me know what you think in the reviews or shoot me a message letting me know if you liked it. I KNOW I totally forced some of this chapter and so it's pretty unevenly paced but I felt like I was in the zone while I was writing the parts you're all here for, so, hey, all good right? Anyway, thanks again for your patience and I hope you enjoyed reading! More to come. Also, holy cow longest chapter yet! I dunno how some of the authors on here crank out tens of thousands of words like they do; those people are superheroes or something. Love!  
_


	11. Chapter 11

_So, yeah, I guess I'm back. I contemplated wrapping this up with an abrupt "and they lived happily ever after" but I guess I couldn't let it rest. Thanks for the favorites and all the new followers._

* * *

Liara was still pretty sore by the time she made it back to camp. She and Bull had left separately to avoid suspicion - mutually agreeing that whatever was between them was best kept a secret for now. She tried not to over-analyze the whole thing as she'd stayed behind and washed the stinging cold water over all her new aches.

So she and Bull had a fling. So what? He had those all the time. Sure, they were comrades and her motives for entering into… whatever this was… were questionable, but there wasn't really a need to classify it, was there? They were just passing time. Working out mutual frustrations. No biggie.

The thing that kept nagging at her, though, niggling at the corner of her mind was the roughness of it all. She'd come to him. She'd been the one to join him, to strip, and to step into that pool, and yet everything from there had been at his direction. He'd told her what she "needed", he'd captured and held her, he'd taken been the first to touch her intimately, and to play. He'd 'led the charge' as it were. It confused her immensely and she couldn't figure out why. He'd been rough, but also tender. He'd been in charge but not in a way that made her feel like she wasn't also controlling what was happening.

Fuck, why did he have to be so gods-damned big if he was going to be so rough? Just walking normally had been a challenge on its own. Were her legs always that close together? Did she always walk this quickly? She'd contemplated calling her horse, but somehow she wasn't relishing the idea of straddling anything just yet.

The whole affair had left her feeling strangely even more hyper-aware of everything on the way back. Was that just a forest bird or one of the Inquisition's ravens? Would a raven even be able to communicate what it'd seen if one had spied on her in the river? Surely that was crazy. The scouts straightened up when they saw her approaching, do they know something? What were they laughing about at the camp up ahead? She tried to keep calm and walk normally – oh Gods, had she forgotten how to walk normally? Was it too late to try to just stealth into a tent and pretend she'd been there all along?

"There you are!" Exclaimed a voice to her right, startling her. Apparently for all her paranoid ultra-senses, she was shockingly oblivious to certain aspects of her surroundings. Cassandra began scolding her for her long absence almost immediately. If they wanted to make it back to Skyhold by midday tomorrow they needed to be on their way as soon as possible, with no time to dally. While being lectured about punctuality and responsibility, she scanned the camp for signs of anything suspicious but came up thankfully empty.

Cass led her to center of camp where Bull and a number of soldiers were gathered around a pot of mystery-meat stew and passing around bread. Iron Bull smiled at her congenially but his face betrayed nothing of the tryst they'd shared. Liara supposed there were worse secret lovers to have than a Ben-Hassrath spy. She sat around the fire with the rest of them and promptly shoved as much bread in her face as her mouth as quickly as her mouth would allow. She was absolutely famished. She'd eaten half the loaf before one of the soldiers sheepishly offered her a bowl of stew to wash it down with.

"Maker, you worked up quite an appetite," said a mildly aghast Cassandra. Liara chose to ignore the comment and ensuing laughter by continuing to focus on burying her warring feelings in food.

"Good thing Lady Vivian already went to her tent. She'd have a fit if she had to witness this," piped one of the soldiers.

"I knew it, you ARE afraid of her," said another.

"Am not!"

And round it went. Everything was normal. Despite the uneasiness in her stomach – though maybe that was from eating too quickly – it appeared that she had nothing to worry about with regards to Iron Bull. If she could avoid time alone with him, she could almost pretend the whole thing never happened, if she wanted to.

Her company rolled out almost as soon as she was finished eating, making back towards the mountains and to Skyhold, and no one was the wiser as to what had happened at the river.

* * *

The dream began as it had the last time. She was actually surprised to see it had returned; she hadn't had this dream since the night after she'd gotten drunk in the cellar and kissed Bull. However, that dream had also taken a decidedly different turn from the usual. Was she going to have another oddly-transitioned, hyper-surreal sex dream, or was this going to be a replay of her previous nightmares?

She began alone again, that much was the same. The full moon hung silver in the sky, lighting the shimmering pool just paces away. Shadows waited to fall upon her as she crept to the water's edge. What would she see this time, she wondered, when she looked into the rippling mirror? The nearer she drew to the pool, the more she began to feel as though she were stepping into two different worlds. Was she dreaming? It felt as though she could still be awake, or perhaps that she was only just waking, with one foot entering the real, living, breathing world, and one still steeped in the dream.

Before her was the same waterfall and pool she'd seen a dozen times in her dreams of Solas. But then, almost phantomlike, she could also almost see herself and Bull intertwined in the waters, as though she were watching from the outside. As she saw it, she could barely recall, which was the reality. Had she and Bull fucked here, in the dream? Was it all fake? Or… was this where Solas had broken her heart? Was where she was now real? Were either of those memories real, or merely dreams?

Tears streamed silently, unbidden, down her face, burning little trails of liquid fire. The sting of them felt real and her chest ached as though she'd just been kicked. Why this dream? Was she stuck in this period of time forever, doomed to repeat this hurt or to replace it with new ones?

She felt as if she could not breathe. Was air even a concern here, or was the breath in her lungs even real? "Gods," she whispered, falling to her knees in the damp grass, "why is this happening?"

The pool glimmered at her, reflecting the moon's rippling laughter. This time, she thought, maybe if this time she could just look into the pool… maybe she might wake up. Maybe she might go back to knowing what was real.

She crawled to the water's edge frantically, desperate to lean over the surface and discover what face it held.

At first she saw nothing, only murk and shine in contrasting bands, but at last, she began to make out her face in the pool's reflection. And when she did, she sighed once, exultant…

And plunged headfirst into its depths. But as she fell, she heard his voice.

"Vhenan…"

* * *

She clutched her heart breathlessly as she bolted awake, silent as the dead.

 _Why?_

She cursed silently, restraining the urge to pound the ground in frustration. Would these dreams never cease? Must there always be some new torment? She'd wanted nothing more than to be awake – anything but to be alone in that place again while a silver-faced demon laughed at her anguish.

But she'd heard him. Solas was there. Why? Gods, why was he there?! Why now?

Gradually, she allowed herself to fill her lungs with air again but her chest ached worse than before.

The first week of the dreams, Solas had always been there to begin with – leaving her over and over again every night as she wished for him to come back. But it'd been days since she'd seen him in her dreams. She'd assumed his absence was a sign that she was beginning to heal and to get over him – to even replace him at least a little bit. What could it mean that he was back? Was she moving backwards?

She couldn't. She wouldn't go back to moping – to wait for someone who would never come.

She waited for her pulse to slow, for sleep to creep back behind her eyes, but it didn't come. Across the fire, her companions and troops were slumbering soundly, seemingly without a care in the world. What she wouldn't give to sleep so well again, she thought bitterly. She was grateful her Dalish upbringing had taught her, at least, to wake silently in the wild. They camped at the quiet mountainside, a hard day's travel remained between them and Skyhold – everyone would need their rest and strength, but she doubted she'd get back to sleep in the hours before sunrise. Sighing, she pushed herself up from her bedroll and retrieved her daggers from the dirt beneath, strapping them at her sides before weaving her way carefully between the sleeping bodies to the outside of the ring. Her gaze lingered on the slumbering body of The Iron Bull as she passed and her body flushed with an unexplainable warmth that she pushed aside. She wasn't ready to explore whatever she was feeling right now. If she was being honest, there was a part of her that wanted to curl up beside him and seek shelter against his massive body and radiating heat. It was that same small, weak part of her that had asked him to stay with her on the balcony. It wasn't her; she wouldn't give it power now.

The memory of what they'd done, though, was tempting her to linger. It called for her to stay, to look at the lips she'd kissed, to imagine the body beneath that blanket and envision herself beside him, astride him, trapped beneath him. He slept on his back and he slept silently, which Liara always found unusual for a man of his size. Did he dream, she wondered? She realized that she actually knew very little about the mercenary leader, despite their time together. She had the sense that he was a deep sleeper because he always seemed incredibly rested and didn't rouse easily in the morning, but the times they'd been ambushed on the road, she'd seen him come awake in an instant, before the enemy ever even fell upon them.

She was startled by a noise behind her and turned to find the lookout staring at her curiously. How long had she seen her watching Bull?

"Inquisitor?" asked the scout, tentatively, in that unnerving way that all Inquisition soldiers did when they addressed her – as if they were constantly awaiting new orders and afraid they weren't carrying them out well enough.

They'd swapped up their escort crew back at camp. Liara recognized the freckled, dark-haired elf girl as one of the recruits they'd picked up shortly after the fallout of Halamshiral. In the Inquisition ranks she went by Eevie, formerly a city elf in service of one of the noble houses that had fallen when Briala began reshaping the empire. In her new role, Eevie has evidently decided to embrace the term 'knife-ear,' instead taking the hateful slur and turning it into a powerful tool for the Inquisition; she had the sharpest hearing of anyone Liara had ever met and the girl took naturally to spy work.

"Scout Eevie," she said, drawing herself up, "how's the night?"

"Nothing to report, ma'am. It's been quiet for the duration of my shift. Xander was up before me and said as much the same."

Liara nodded. A quiet night was a blessing.

"Good. You're relieved, I can take over from here." She would've expected anyone to be excited about the prospect of sleeping a few more hours, but the scout simply stood there, shuffling on her feet and looking everywhere but at Liara.

"Ma'am," she said, her voice stretched impossibly thin like parchment, "maybe it's not my place to say. I probably shouldn't say anything. But. I saw. I mean, I saw you and…" To Liara's enduring horror, the girl nodded to the sleeping form of The Iron Bull. Liara turned ghostly pale as Eevie continued.

"At the river. Together. I didn't see a lot. I wasn't peeping, just patrolling. I turned right around but I didn't say anything to anyone. I mean, everyone thinks you're still hung up on that… other guy, you know? I was going to report to Leliana, cuz she'll always find out eventually." Liara's heart sat heavy with dread as the girl stared her down pointedly, her eyes sparkling brilliantly.

"But it doesn't have to be from me." With this, the little elven girl drew herself up tall, lifting her heart up to her chest and spreading her fingers out over her heart. "I know what you did for Orlais. You're a hero to the elves, miss. Whatever else happens, the elves of Orlais have your back. So if you want this quiet, I won't say a word."

Liara was speechless. Not least of all because this girl had witnessed her indiscretion down by the river. She cast a worried glance back to Iron Bull, who thankfully still appeared to be sleeping, oblivious to how close they'd just come to being outed. At first, she'd thought Eevie might have been trying to solicit compensation for keeping her secret, but the last thing she was expecting was a declaration of unwavering, heartfelt endorsement that she could apparently do no wrong by the elves.

"Th-thank you," she stammered, not knowing quite what else to say. Eevie withdrew her hand from her heart and dropped it to her waist with a proudly satisfied smile.

"Wouldn't be the first time I'd had to cover up an affair, you know. You could've picked worse; I hear he's really… gifted."

"Ah, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about it."

"Right. Of course."

"So. What happened to your markings?" She piped up, apparently emboldened by the secret that now bound them.

"My markings?" Gasped Liara, touching her face unconsciously.

"Yeah. I thought they didn't come off."

"They don't." She blinked, "I mean, I didn't think they did either."

"But they can be removed?"

"Yes. I guess. I mean, if you know how."

Another long moment of silence passed between the two of them before Eevie spoke again, whispering quietly, tentatively. When she looked back on it later, Liara was never able to decide if Eevie had confided in her because she no longer had the vallaslin, or if something bigger was happening within the Inquisition – something that transcended years of hatred and suspicion.

"I wish those stupid markings didn't exist." She spat, "I hate them."

Taken aback, Liara simply stared at the girl, her face a mask of utter confusion. With her silence as complicit agreement, Eevie continued.

"It's like they don't even think of us as elves, you know. Some of them are as bad as the humans, the way they look at us with pity. With contempt. And they don't even want to help. You hear all kinds of stories about the ones who leave, to join up with a clan; missing, dead, enslaved, turned away, turned into a halla with apostate magic. And it's those damned markings, I know it is!" She was shaking, hissing her curses quietly and bitterly into the night, "They don't want to help us because we look different."

When the girl finally calmed down, Liara told her to get some rest for the journey to come, but as morning slowly overtook the sky, she returned to her words over and over again, growing ever more concerned by the horrible truth of them and what it meant for her people.


	12. Chapter 12

_Hey ya'll, been pretty busy with getting into grad school and scholarship crap. If anyone has any pull with Denver University I'd love to connect with them – I am super poor and my dream school is pretty expensive ;) (jk... kind of... not really lol)_

 _Anyway, here's chapter 12 in which things start going decidedly sideways._

* * *

Liara was quiet on the journey back. Her eyes stung at the effort of staying open in the cold mountain air as they made their way up the windy trails to Skyhold. Their path alternated between the main route that was used primarily for caravans and large troop movement, and the more direct but harsher goat trails. Their paths twisted up and up, down, round the way, and then back up some more. Liara found their journey, with all its twists and bends to be an ironically perfect reflecting of the path of her thoughts as they went.

It had been an all-around exhausting night, followed, almost inevitably by a damning morning. When Eevie had finally left the Inquisitor alone with her thoughts, they did nothing but torment her, twisting her soul around as over and over again she returned, reluctant and weary, to the fate of the people she'd once considered hers. All across Thedas, she reflected, the elves were divided.

They lived, secluded and constantly fleeing humans and Templars as Dalish, each clan having little in common with one another apart from their unfaltering suspicion of outsiders.

The lived, fearful and battered, in alianages, clawing at the feet of the humans they lived alongside in the vain hope of being given a chance to live outside of disease, poverty, and the threat of violence.

They lived, broken and enslaved by powerful, merciless monsters or magisters masquerading as men.

All any elf wanted was to live. Instead they simply survived, as shadows of their former glory, praying to dead or deaf gods to be lifted up again. They did this, or they died, extinct and forgotten, as slaves, servants, gutter-trash, apostate-lovers, or as blood sacrifices.

Was this a legacy? Were these her people? Her thoughts clawed at her, stinging her with each deep score as old wounds reopened and bled over and over again until morning came and the camp began to come to life. And in the bustle of the morning chaos, she found her way back to Bull and stole away to quiet the clamoring hurt in her heart, to fill it with flesh and sin and secrets.

For the short moments they were together, the noise of her thoughts vanished. His rough hands pushed back violently against the war in her mind, forcing it into quiet submission as his mouth covered her and smothered any hope of resistance. She let herself be swallowed up in the waves of pleasure he subjected her to, accepting the all-too-welcome reprieve from having to consider the larger picture in favor of satisfying the small, swelling pleasures within her body.

She was tired from the nightmares. She was exhausted from the lack of sleep. She was weary from her morning diversions. All of this, and the journey itself, should've been enough to keep her mind from returning to the thoughts she was trying desperately to avoid. But at every turn they found her again, coming unbidden as disorganized questions that begged answers too complex for her to form.

Her thoughts pulled her down, even as they ascended the mountain.

It was early evening when they finally arrived in Skyhold, crossing over the main bridge and through the gate to shouts of "The Inquisitor has arrived". Their usual welcome awaited them, but with one unusual exception.

Just inside the gate, impatient and distressed, the spymaster Leliana waited for her attention. The hooded woman called silently with seemingly shining eyes for her attention, from the instant the Inquisitor met her gaze. As her company entered through the gates and gradually began dispersing, Liara made her way to join her spymaster, anxious for whatever news awaited her from her absence. But the news Leliana waited to give her stopped her cold and stole the breath from her lungs.

Two words was all she said: "He's returned."

But there could be no mistaking her meaning. Liara glanced around the courtyard nervously, suddenly fearful of prying eyes and ears. Who else knew about this?

"How long?" She asked, licking at her cracked lips.

"Only just," came her curt reply. "We were unsure of what to do at first. Cullen wanted him detained as a deserter but Cole would not hear of it. He is back in his study. It is eerie. Like he never left."

Oh, gods. Why? She'd longed for this day almost as much as she had dreaded it.

"Has he said anything?" She tried to keep her face a mask of calm indifference, but it felt several shades lighter despite her best intentions.

"No. When we tried to question him upon his arrival, he merely stated that he still served the Inquisition's purpose and would be waiting for you to return. Cole was very… upset. We thought it best to wait for you."

Liara was suddenly aware that Bull had been watching them from the courtyard. He must know, she realized. There could surely be no disguising the sunken look on her face – not from him. He must've known immediately. Without a word, she nodded to Leliana, then turned and drifted, dazed and dreamlike up the stairs of the keep, unable to fully contemplate the gravity of what she'd just been told.

Solas was back.

Of course he was. She glanced over her shoulder as she rounded the second set of steps, but thankfully Bull was nowhere to be seen. She would find him later, she knew. For now she could only handle one catastrophe at a time.

She found Solas precisely where Leliana had said he would be, and she was right; it was almost like he'd never left. Almost. Of course, little about his appearance had changed in the weeks he'd been gone. He sat in his chair with his back to the door but it was apparently he hadn't quite settled in yet, as he still wore his robe and his staff rested nearby against the desk. His room was the same as she'd left it last.

As far as appearances went, things seemed unchanged. But in her heart, there was no mistaking the shift that had taken place between them. Where once she would've approached him openly as a friend and lover, now there was a haunting, sunken fear that the man before her was merely an apparition, come to taunt her, to wound her, only to vanish again.

"It's not an illusion," came the voice of the mind-invading spirit from above her, startling her as she entered the circular chamber. To the right, perched on the scaffolding like some ghostly guardian, Cole sat watching her with wide, sad eyes.

With her presence now announced, Liara watched as Solas stood from his chair, turned towards her, scarring her with his loveliness. "Thank you, Cole," he said blandly, the first words she's heard him speak since he'd said goodbye. The disappointed her. They wounded her over again, reminding her of her unimportance as he addressed the interloper to their reunion. "I believe it's safe for you to go now." And just as he'd said it, the spirit was gone, as if he'd never been.

Solas was back.

It was the only thought in her mind right now, playing on repeat ever louder as he drew nearer. She could feel the murky pressure of her emotions behind the phrase but could not parse them out, could not comprehend and deal with them in an orderly way as the face she once loved stared levelly at her.

What could she say? She'd come up to confront him – to address why he'd abandoned her so completely and entirely. But there was too much to say and something caught in her throat.

Solas stopped just outside of arm's reach and regarded her with a coolness that made her skin crawl and her spine tense. They stood still like that for one brief eternity, mute statues with small, timid souls that probed the other for an opening. Anyone looking down from the upper levels would be tempted to think that time had simply stopped for the pair of them – that perhaps they'd vanished into the fade to speak privately. Whatever was happening was neither the tearful homecoming of a returned lover, as some had suspected it might be, nor the unleashed wrath of a lover spurned and abandoned, as would have been her right.

In his absence, Liara had felt a great many things about their separation. But now that he was actually here?

She found she could do nothing but wait.

She waited for some sign from him that would tell her how she should feel. Any intonation or body language that would tell her it was ok to rage, to cry, to reprimand him and demand an explanation. But Solas was ever as he always was. He bled quiet calm serenity at her, soothing a tempest of hurt and confusion that lurked just under her skin. She tried, unsuccessfully, many times in that span of silence, to speak, but never found her words. When the silence was finally broken, it was Solas who did so.

"You deserve an explanation," he said, holding his hands helplessly aloft as if he meant to offer the excuses from his palms. Liara searched his face desperately for some hint of contrition, for some sign that he might say something – anything - that would make right all the pain he'd caused her. That the nightmares would resolve and not be for nothing. He looked at her with those small sad eyes that used to make her long, most of all, to hold him.

"I am sorry that I left and for the pain my actions may have caused you, personally. Know that I only did so believing that it was best for the Inquisition."

Was that all? She began to shake, her small hands clutched into tiny fists as her sides.

"That was not your call to make," she replied flatly, trying to keep the storm inside her from breaking out of her control.

"I was a distraction to you. By leaving I was able to visit the fade, and to research the orb that Corypheus carries."

"I don't care about the fucking orb!" She hated that she felt remorse when she saw her words pained him. After weeks of carrying her own pain alone because of this selfish man, she hated that she could still feel pity for him. "Is that all you have to say to me?"

"Vhenan…"

"Don't! You left me there and you didn't say why or how long you'd be gone or anything." She felt herself trembling and was certain that at any moment she might scream at him or burst into tears. "And now that you're back, you're still acting like you know what's best for us? For me? And you call me 'vhenan'? What are you playing at?"

And still he offered nothing to appease her. No reason for his betrayal. Instead he said again: "Forgive me. Please. I know that what I did may seem unforgivable to you. No apology will ever be sufficient."

"That is not an excuse," she spat.

"No. It is not."

"The Inquisition needs to be able to trust you, Solas. I need to be able to trust you. Right now, I could order them to throw you in chains and drag you to me for judgment, if I so desired it."

"Please. Allow me to make it right. I know what Corypheus plans. He will try to re-open the breach again. Let me help you stop him."

"Of course you'll help us stop him," she muttered bitterly, "but that doesn't mean we can trust you, it just means you don't want the world to be destroyed by a madman. It means whatever your true goals are – the things you won't tell me – align with mine for now. But that's all."

She stared back at the man she used to love. She searched his small bright eyes for some spark of goodness there that might assure her that things would be alright. She traced over the sharp lines of his nose with her eyes. She journeyed, as if for the first time, across the soft curve of his cheek that had once been so familiar to her and down to the sweet dimple of his chin. Seeing him again… seeing him like this… hurt. Why did it have to keep hurting? Why did he have to leave? Why wouldn't he tell her why?

"I want to be able to trust you again," she whispered.

"I know. Let me help you. Please."

It was the greatest test Liara ever faced to swallow her pain and her pride in that moment and to put the Inquisition's needs above her own, but at last she conceded.

"You are still a soldier. You will tell us what you've learned and help us stop Corypheus. We can worry about the future of us after the current crisis is over."

He sighed. "Thank you," he said, greatly relieved, "Corypheus will try to reopen the breach at the temple of Andreste. That rift is the largest and it is the fist. He is gathering power. I felt him when I was in the fade. He will make his move very soon."

She waited, impatiently for more. The information he presented wasn't exactly new or enlightening. She knew that Corypheus could strike any time, and with a dragon for transportation, even if they did have advance warning about his movements, it might only buy them a few hours. They couldn't just wait at the temple of sacred ashes for him to show up – if he even showed up.

"That's not very much to go off of, Solas," she said, annoyed, "I'd hoped you left us for something more than that."

"I came back to help!" he said with an exasperated shrug. "I know you may not trust me but you must believe, whatever else, that I am here to help you. That I care for you, vhenan, and that I am sorry for hurting you."

But she didn't believe that. She wanted to. Desperately. But he'd offered no real excuse. He was hiding something from her and she was afraid what it might be. It was too easy for her to want to fall back into it with him; to go to him and tell him of her hurts and let him soothe them. But his secrets…

"I had an interesting conversation last night with a city elf." She said. "She believed the vallaslin were destroying our kind. That maybe if we all looked the same, we might become a more unified people." She traced the phantom outline of where her markings used to be, watching his expression twist as she lanced him with a cold stare. "I thought that once. I thought if I gave up my vallaslin, that I could be closer to you. But it didn't. I didn't have the heart to tell that girl that she was being naïve – that there's too much else keeping us apart that has nothing to do with how we look."

And it was this, she thought, more than anything else she's said, that hurt him. "The markings are not to blame," he said. "The marks of slavery run deeper than mere writing on skin. If I could unite our people merely by making our faces alike, I would. But it is not so simple as that."

"No," she confirmed bitterly, "it's not."

And with that she turned and left.

Solas was back, yes, but she didn't know if she'd ever get _her_ Solas back.


End file.
